How Bo Nix is treating quarantine like an NFL offseason

Bo Nix has some good quarterback company during quarantine.

The second-year Auburn quarterback is torn up by the fact that he can't be around his teammates right now. He'd give anything to be back inside the Auburn athletics complex, reconvening with other team leaders and making valuable connections with incoming players. But for the near future, at least, that's not a possibility for any of the Tigers.

So Nix has to make do with what he's got. And he's found himself in a fortunate situation at home, working with two quarterbacks — one young and one experienced, but both with the same Nix last name on the back of their proverbial jerseys.

"Obviously it’s fun to be around my brothers and around my dad again and get to train with them," Nix said on a video conference with reporters last week. "It’s kind of like a piece of the NFL when you get to train in the offseason by yourself. It’s a different situation. It’s hard to really describe. You have to take it a day at a time. Whatever you can find out in the yard to do is kind of what you find yourself doing.”

Nix's father, Patrick, once an Auburn quarterback himself, as well as a college quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, is present for workouts. Then there's Caleb, Bo's younger brother and a 2022 quarterback prospect at Central-Phenix City, which is Patrick's new head-coaching gig.

But the eldest Nix's primary responsibility is his own team's quarterback, the 16-year-old Caleb. "I’m just training one quarterback right now," Patrick tells Bo. But the feedback from Patrick is still there — as it's been for Bo's entire life regardless of his father's occupation — whenever the three make the drive to a field or work in the backyard to practice.

"I’ve been fine with it and I just know the circumstances are different," Bo said of working with his father. "Obviously he’s always going to be one of my quarterback trainers, and he’s always going to tell me exactly what he thinks. So I don’t have to worry about that, really."

Caleb and Bo work in tandem, surveying their own playbooks and studying their own install but helping each other nonetheless. They bounce ideas off one another and run routes for each other, a duty Bo sees not as a bother, but as an excuse to sharpen his conditioning.

While Patrick teaches Caleb, Bo, who laughed that he's "absolutely" the best quarterback in the Nix family, has time to think inward and work on his craft in a way he wouldn't be able to if he was amid normal practice sessions on campus.

That's the part Bo sees as the most comparable to a professional offseason — the responsibility is all on him to find ways to improve every day without the usual structure of team operations.

“I think it’s self-evaluation, and it gives you a lot of time to self-reflect," Bo said. "It kind of gives you a chance to experiment with new things. When you’re by yourself and training by yourself you can kind of focus on personal things you would like to get better at. ... When you’re by yourself you can zone in on certain things with their help and guidance from afar and focus in on certain things. For me, it’s continuing to get faster and continue to get stronger."

Bo didn't gather a ton from new Auburn offensive coordinator Chad Morris' system during their limited time together before the virus hit. That's what spring install was supposed to be for. Still, Bo said the difference in terminology from Gus Malzahn's offensive schemes to Morris' isn't much, and he has a good enough understanding of it at this point in his quarantine period to draw out some plays during his personal practice time.

“I kind of have a plan going out there," Bo said of his training sessions. "I don’t like going out there just to throw. I like to be prepared and have a mindset."

Bo said if he's heading out to the yard or to a designated practice area, he has a daily goal of improving something with his game — whether that be a facet from within the playbook, route timing he knows he'll be tested on when he returns, or general confidence with a certain throw.

A normal "practice" day for Bo, he said, usually begins with the first of that list — a scripted play from Auburn's offense. He'll call out the play in his head, testing himself about its specifics, before lining up the likes of Caleb, Patrick and anyone else from his house he's recruited to help in the slots where his receivers and running backs would usually be.

"I can go out there and put certain people in spots and throw it to them and treat it like our offense," he said.

Auburn's coaches are working with players four hours a week with virtual instruction. For the quarterbacks room, that's consisted of playbook install over Zoom meetings, led by Morris and assistant QBs coach and offensive analyst Will Bryant.

Morris is counting on the likes of Bo, and backups Cord Sandberg and Chayil Garnett, to assess themselves responsibly and practice in line with the offense's stipulations; by rule, coaches cannot ask players about their progress in conditioning, workouts or practice.

That hasn't been a problem for Bo, who is pushing himself day by day as the quarantine turns from weeks to months.

"I kind of have to have a spring practice by myself because I can’t be around the guys," Bo said.

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