Bo Nix's performance against Texas A&M was heavily critiqued. And, rightfully so. He knows he needs to play better and Bryan Harsin knows it wasn't Nix's best game, either.
But Harsin also defended Nix on Monday, reminding everyone that it doesn't all fall on the lap of the quarterback.
"He didn't have his best game obviously. There were things and reasons why; you know, it's not always just on that one particular position," Harsin said. "And I've said that before. I think the quarterback gets way too much credit and way too much blame, and I still believe that. And so, it's a matter of going back and making sure that, one, he's playing better, two, the guys around him are playing better."
Nix finished the game 20-of-41 for 153 yards and an interception. Nix also inexplicably dropped the ball in the fourth quarter which A&M scooped up and took for a touchdown. Auburn went from trailing 9-3 to 17-3 and effectively out of the game.
“An experienced quarterback like myself, I shouldn't make those kinds of plays,” Nix said on The Next Round show on Monday. “I should just tuck it and take the loss and live to play another down. That’s completely on me; it should have never happened.”
PFF graded Nix at a 44.3 — the lowest of the season for him and the lowest since he graded out at a 29.7 following the 2019 Florida game.
Harsin said after the game that he believed Nix could provide a spark to the offense and didn't consider putting in backup T.J. Finley.
Now, though, it's about turning the page and preparing for Mississippi State on Saturday.
"The message is, alright, how do we now learn from this and we get back into a situation like that again, which we will be," Harsin said. "There'll be some adversity. There'll be things that don't go our way. How do we get right back into it and go focus on the task at hand and go execute like we need to? To me, there's emotions in a game, but we all have jobs to do. We've got to go out there and execute those jobs.
"You've got 11 guys, you've got to do your 1/11th. Sometimes it doesn't go your way, and as a quarterback, you know, what it comes down to is decision-making. It didn't work, make a great situation, if we have to punt and play defense we'll keep doing that until we can finally get a little bit of a spark and get things going."
Auburn's offense hasn't scored a touchdown in six-straight quarters of play, now, and Harsin is looking to everyone to fix that.
"All the way around on the offensive side, it’s not any one player in particular; it’s everybody, execution, the whole plan of just making sure that we’re going to be better at those things moving forward," Harsin said.
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