What does Auburn's passing attack look like on early downs in 2022?

Do the Tigers have the personnel to execute early and often in the passing game?

Fans weren't a huge fan of Auburn throwing the football on early downs.

Instead, most people wanted to see the Tigers give the ball to star running back Tank Bigsby. Auburn chose to stick with what they believed worked.

As it turns out, Auburn actually found a lot of success throwing the ball on first and second down in 2021. Take a look at our stat of the day.

Stat of the day

Last season on first and second down, Auburn's quarterbacks were a combined 198-of-304 (65.1% comp.) for 2,117 yards with a TD/INT ratio of 11/1.

What it means

Auburn had above average success throwing the ball on early downs in 2021. However, Bo Nix did most of the heavy lifting.

Nix was 149-of-223 (66.8%) with a TD/INT ratio of 9/0. TJ Finley, on the other hand, struggled. He was 49-of-81 (60.4%) on first and second down with a TD/INT ratio of 2/1.

It gets even worse when you take out passes thrown behind the line of scrimmage. His completion percentage plummets to 47%.

While Auburn overall did a good job of taking advantage of things on first and second down in 2021, it will be interesting to see if the new offensive personnel (specifically at quarterback) will be able to execute as well as Bo Nix did. If Finley's numbers are an indicator of what's to come, I'm concerned.

With the limitations Auburn has in run blocking, they'll have to throw often in 2022. Hopefully the Tigers have answers come fall.

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