AUBURN | Even a casual observer could see Joey Gatewood’s improvement in the A-Day game.

The redshirt freshman looked comfortable in his role as the No. 1 quarterback for the first-team offense, completing 70 percent of his passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns. But Gatewood’s development is about more than his improved fundamentals or added experience running the offense.

Offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham has been at Auburn for less than five months and has already seen a transformation, at least the beginning of one.

“Joey's an awesome kid. He's quiet, so by nature, he doesn't feel confident. That doesn't mean he's not confident, just the perception of him is going to be not confident,” said Dillingham before speaking at an Auburn alumni club in Flowery Branch, Ga., last week. “The biggest thing we worked on is, one, learning the offense. Then when you learn the offense, being assertive. If you're going to be a quarterback in the SEC, you're the face of the program. You've got to be assertive. You can't be a passive person. You have to be your personality, but there are times where you're going to have to learn how to be aggressive or how to clap loud or how to say the cadence loud or how to communicate loud, how to take command.

“You don't have to be that all the time, but I think the biggest thing with Joey was taking him out of that comfort zone of — you're not a freshman anymore. Jarrett Stidham is not here anymore. There is nobody you’re looking at and saying, 'Hey, is it my turn to talk?' It is your turn. It is your time. Take it. Throughout the spring, he got more comfortable with that mold and with that role, which is hard when you're still dealing with 19-year-olds, which people forget sometimes.”

Just a year earlier, Gatewood completed 4 of 14 passes for 0 yards in the 2018 A-Day game. The Jacksonville, Fla., native has come a long way over the past 12 months, and his increasing confidence spilled over to the entire offense during this year's spring as he made a strong case to be Auburn’s starting quarterback for the opener against Oregon Aug. 31.

“He grew. I saw him grow a lot,” running back Kam Martin said. “Like I was just telling one of the guys, man, you know, from January 1 when we came—whenever we came back from the break from the bowl game, Joey grew. He came in with a different mindset. He wanted to get better, and I feel like he got better this spring.”

“His confidence. You can really tell like he's stepping into the role of becoming a potential, big-time player,” wide receiver Seth Williams said. “You can see that in all of them, but from Joey last year to Joey this year, you can see his confidence has improved a lot.”