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Gus Malzahn's bizarre quarterback rotation made his seat even hotter
Clemson did everything it could to hand Auburn the game.
The Auburn defense did everything it could to win the game.
But those two things didn’t matter, because Auburn coach Gus Malzahn did everything he could sabotage those two efforts, and because of that, Auburn lost 19-13 and is 0-1 to start the season.
Malzahn is widely considered an offensive genius — he was the offensive coordinator for the 2010 National Championship team and took a team led by converted cornerback Nick Marshall to the National Championship game — but Saturday night, that genius backfired.
Malzahn outsmarted himself and it lost Auburn a winnable game against a title contender. In doing so, Malzahn, in the long run, might have coached himself out of a job.
Malzahn took the adage "if you have two quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks" to the next level Saturday — he's an offensive visionary after all — by playing three different QBs to play three different offenses in anything but a steady rotation against Clemson.
Sean White — a pocket passer — started the game, but he gave way to Jeremy Johnson — a dual threat — who gave way to John Franklin — a run-first QB.
If you merged all three quarterbacks together: White’s arm, Franklin’s legs and with Johnson’s size, you’d have Cam Newton — perhaps that’s what Malzahn was going for Saturday.
The Frankenstein QB was truly a monster — and not in a good way.
White went 10-for-21 for 140 yards while throwing an interception at the Clemson 1-yard line. He had a quarterback rating of 19.
Johnson went 4-for-6 for 38 yards while throwing an interception. He had a quarterback rating of 0.7, which few knew was possible. He also ran for minus-18 yards.
Franklin had one throw, a loss of three — his QB rating was 2.0, which was somehow better than Johnson’s.
The quarterbacks were never able to get into a rhythm — but still, the Auburn offense had the Clemson defense spun.
"They were out there running Wing-T and all kinds of stuff,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said after the game.
Indeed, Auburn did run Wing-T run plays Saturday. Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables had a hunch they might and was so unfamiliar with the classic offense that he googled “How to stop the Wing-T” and watched a few videos online.
"It was unbelievable. We were over there just trying to figure it out,” Swinney said.
But the constant offensive changes also confused the Auburn offense. Despite this, Malzahn insisted on continuing to rotate three quarterbacks.
It was, indeed, unbelievable.
But it was all planned: "We went into this thing knowing we were going to play all three. At times, it worked well. At times, we struggled,” Malzahn said.
Malzahn entered the season on the hot seat, and it was, more than anything else, poor quarterback play last season that put him in that situation.
Malzahn’s quarterback woes might not be behind him — he’s only added Franklin, whose arm is not going to win games in the SEC, to the mix this summer — but the coach's decisions compounded those problems Saturday.
Because of that, Auburn is no closer to solving its quarterback conundrum than it was before Saturday’s loss.
With games against Arkansas State — a Group-of-Five team to not take lightly — Texas A&M, and LSU looming in the next three weeks, that was a question that needed to be answered in Week 1.
But after Saturday’s display of questionable coaching, the bigger question is if Malzahn will survive the looming three-game stretch at all.
