Byrum Brown Is Way Better Than Florida's Quarterback

This is the Locked On Podcast Network, celebrating 10 years of your team every day. It's so nice at Auburn's going into conference play against Florida with a much better quarterback. You are Locked On Auburn, your daily podcast on the Auburn Tigers. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Yes, I'm Zac Blackerby. He is the Auburn Message Board legend, Kyle Rush. And on today's Locked On Auburn, we'll get to health. I think that benefits Auburn. We'll talk about trench play. I think that could benefit Auburn. But we're going to talk about the most important position on the field, Kyle. Yeah. And it's quarterback. And how nice is it that Auburn gets to go into conference play and say, yes, the better quarterback is under center in an Auburn, New Jersey, not some other school. And in this case, we're talking about Aaron Philo, who is the quarterback for the Florida Gators. Byrum Brown is the better quarterback. And I think that will give Auburn the edge on Saturday. That's tough. Look, I don't know that I'm 100% on board that Byrum's a better quarterback. I mean, first of all, Byrum's way too tall. He's taller than Aaron, and that can be cumbersome when you're, you know, you know, he's shorter, lower to the ground. So it's easier for him to move around. He's lighter, too. You know, Byrum's just getting way too heavy as far as the way he moves around. I mean, he threw for two. He said 6'1, 207 is the ideal size for quarterback? Yeah, that's, I mean, to me, that's prototype. That's what you're talking about. So you're talking about 6'1, 207 over 6'3, 235. Yes, 10 times out of 10. And then an extra time on Sundays or whatever that expression is. Look, I mean, he played Florida Atlantic, and he only threw one interception. Carved him up, carved him up. And then he took down Campbell, which everyone knows how tough Campbell is. He was very efficient against Campbell. I just don't know. I mean, he completed 76% of his passes against the old Camels. I just don't know that I'm there yet, that Byrum's a better quarterback than Aaron Philo. There's just so many things about him that I like. Yeah. Okay. I mean, clearly battle tested. Totally. Yeah. If you look at resume right now, you got to go with, you got to go. I mean, they've scored 120 points, over 120 points this year already. You know, it's kind of wild though. Yeah. I can't wait for the flyer people. But actually, Byrum has 485 passing yards on the season, Philo has 517, and Auburn's played actual opponents. And also Byrum, just a much better runner. Yeah, but what's his QBR? What's Byrum's QBR? Oh man, QBR. Probably not good. 68.3 to 85.2. Get out of here. I mean, what if I told you QBR is not a real stat? 85.2 QBR? Can he get drafted next week? Like, could an NFL team, in theory, sign him, pick him up in free agency before the season starts? I mean, this guy's legit. I mean, the Falcons need a quarterback. They did. The Vikings, the Vikings are in a bind. Who would you rather have, Aaron Philo or Cooper Rush right now? Great last name. A great last name. Some say it's the greatest. Yeah. I'm just kidding, Aaron Philo sucks. I want Byrum Brown all day, 10 times out of 10. I wonder how long you're going to let that go out and for. I don't know that he sucks, but I still would rather have Byrum Brown. He's actually looked fine. But what do we know about it? I was talking about this with Darryl, about the offensive line and we'll talk about this in a second. But if Auburn had played Southern Miss twice, or FAU and Campbell, which are both worse, I think, than Southern Miss. All of the issues that popped up against Baylor, we wouldn't know they exist. We wouldn't know them. Yeah. The coaching staff may have suspicions or whatever, but there's nothing on tape for you to say, yo, you're actually not good at this. Or maybe we should make a change at left guard. You wouldn't know. Or whatever it might be. That's a lot. You'd be lulled. That's a lot that you're just assuming based on tape against FAU and Campbell. I think you'd just be kind of lulled to sleep, to think that you kind of got it all figured out. And the first time you may face adversity, it might be game three. And Auburn's already been battle tested. Auburn's had a come from, did they come from behind? No, they didn't come from behind, but they had a game sort of ceiling, not ceiling, touchdown to go ahead and then a big stop to win the game. I believe they call that a go ahead touchdown. A go ahead touchdown and then a stop to win the game. Florida hasn't really felt that heat yet. And they haven't played anybody that can even remotely come close to giving them that kind of pressure. So right off the bat, I like Byrum Brown in those, in that situation, because he's got proof of concept. Where it's being played, I think really matters here. Oh, yeah. They're not selling, they're not giving away this home game. No, no, we're not going to play this one in Atlanta. Sorry, sorry about that. But I just think everything about this points to Auburn. There's a few matchups I don't like in this game. I don't like Florida's interior D-line versus Auburn's interior line. I don't like that. I think Florida's corners are pretty dang good. And running back really, I love the running back. How could you not? But I think that could be strength on strength. Like I feel good. I just trust our linebackers and DJ Durkin for that. And so then it's like, all right, if you make. I assume the goal for Auburn will be we're going to make Aaron Philo beat us. I mean, that's that's how I would defend Florida. Yeah, if that's your if that's your game plan, your toast. What I was going to carve you up. I'm kidding. Oh, yeah, there it is. I'm still going with a bit. But yeah, some of the so like there's some matchups where all right. I like Florida's receiving core. I like it a little bit more. Obviously, if Eric Singleton is healthy, it doesn't sound like he's going to be likely to play. It's in a boot, I think. Right. Then they say he was in a boot. Yeah. Yeah. Just talking to Florida folks, it sounds like he's going to be questionable, but I haven't talked to anybody who thinks he's likely to play. If he is able to play, he's 100 percent. I do think that's a really important factor here. That's one that we can't ignore. When it comes down to it, if I was Florida, I would also make Byrum throw to beat us, to be clear. Just who do you trust more in that situation based on matchup? I do think I would take the guy with the more experience and the more production, and that is Byrum Brown. Me too. Basically, what you're describing is there's some give and take on both rosters. There's some stuff that I feel like maybe you could put in Auburn's category. There's some stuff you could put in Florida's category. I think they're honestly maybe pretty similar in some areas. Then you get to the quarterback, and I think ultimately, quarterbacks decide games. In this particular scenario, I'd give the nod to Byrum based off of experience, based off of level of competition he's already played. Then being at home too, that's definitely going to play a factor. But I'm with you. I just feel like in a lot of games, Auburn's probably going to have a quarterback advantage. With the step he took from last week, two weeks ago to last week, and I think that progression should just kind of continue in the friendly confines of Jordan-Hare Stadium and just continue this march. I'm with you. I give the nod to Byrum. Yeah, the trench play I think is fascinating. You talk about that give and take. I want to jump into that. But yeah, as far as like comparing rosters, give me our quarterback over theirs. Can we say the same about the trenches? That's next, right here, Unlocked On Auburn. Today's show brought to you by our friends at FanDuel. 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Kyle Rush, hanging out with us over at Auburn Daily. When you look at the trenches, I think the defensive side of the ball benefits for both teams. I like Auburn's defensive front against Florida's offensive line. And right now, I like Florida's defensive line versus Auburn's offensive line. So I think both defensive lines are a matchup problem for the opposing offensive line right now. I think that's totally fair. Florida's got a pretty, I think they got a host of transfers in that starting lineup on the offensive side, which it feels like the more transfers you have, the more like small issues that you have on Auburn. All five are brand new for the most part. So yeah, I think both of them will see some struggles at times when the other side of the ball, which is- Kyle, real quick, how far into the season does that go away? All right, all five are brand new. At what point do we say, okay, this is like, they've played enough together? Cuz I think we're getting close to that point. I would think by like week three or four, you ought to have it figured out. Don't you? Yeah, I'm almost to the point where it doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, everybody's gonna have, everybody for the most part is gonna have new guys. Not many people have just this continuity of like a stable of offensive linemen. They're just churning in and you got five guys have been in the program for three years. Like that just doesn't happen very often anymore. So I mean, you would need a lot of circumstances to say, hey, we're bringing back four starters from the year prior. Either they're not good enough to go pro. They're not getting tampered with by other schools. Or you had to start them all when they were super, super young. Now is the thing at the tail end of the gust miles on air. I felt like we had the same O line for like three years in a row. And it's like, all right, here we go. It's like, they were all just, they were always just, ah, they're always okay, you know? Right. So yeah, like I think returning three or four starters, it would take a super unique situation for that always to be a good thing. Yeah. And yeah, I'm with you. Like wasn't Caleb Kim our center for like seven seasons? It felt like it. And then like Austin Troxell was there for a lot of years. And yeah, no, I think that's pretty rare nowadays. And I'm with you. Like I don't even know how necessarily good or beneficial that is. But regardless, they have a new they have new faces. We have new faces. And I'm with you. I think that's going to potentially give each offense some issues here or there, because I think both defensive front sevens are pretty solid. I will say that it's the most confident and comfortable I've been with a pair of offensive tackles at Auburn in a hot minute. They have not really had a super marquee pass rusher to go up against. Baylor was a lot more effective to me from the interior. Interior, yeah. And then Southern Miss didn't really have anybody quite yet that could challenge. But on the flip side, Florida has not really been just like racking up the Saks either against two very inferior opponents. I know Saks don't always tell the whole story. Yeah. And Saks are really more of like a team deal than just like an individual deal. And I know you can get hurries, you can get pressures and all that stuff that are just as good. But bottom line is they're not getting the quarterback to the ground. And they're playing teams with I feel like they should be able to just ball them and get them down to the ground. So that's another thing to me that I'm interested to see if, because if you can't get to Byrum, if you can't affect Byrum and he's able to break, contain and use his legs and have those demoralizing drive, extending runs, that just weighs on you, man. That just weighs on you throughout a game. So that's something I'm very curious to see how it plays out. Yeah. The edge guys to pay attention to for Florida. Jaden Woods. It's kind of the more traditional edge. We'll see how he plays. He's probably the most relevant that we're talking about here against the Auburn Tackles. Then Cam James, Emmanuel Oye-Bedejo and LJ. McCrae are kind of more strong side ends. Oye-Bedejo. Oye-Emanuel is questionable, and so we'll see what happens. LJ does have a sack this year. I thought he would just be like, this is his junior year. I thought he would have been like all-American for three years, and we just haven't really heard much of him. I feel like for a couple of years. I don't even know if he's like a true starter yet, is he? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so either. I don't think so either. So I do like our tackles better than their edges. Their interior guys, I think, is my biggest concern. I think most inter... I think the interior is clearly the biggest question mark of Auburn's offensive line in general. So I think most matchups on the interior are going to not necessarily favor Auburn unless this whole experiment with, you know, Wilson Zierer going in there at left guard changes some things. It seemed to change some things. And I saw Golisch talk about how that, in particular, that matchup that Southern Miss gave us, they went to a lot more gap scheme as far as run game goes, kind of like getting a hat on a hat, you know, pulling a guard. You know, you know who you're blocking. You go block that man versus zone. And they seem to kind of create a spark there. I know you can't just like impose that every single time. You got to take kind of what the defense gives to you. But could that have been something that Auburn found that they can go back to to create success and create some push? The way Golish talked about Zierer and the interior O-line, I mean, obviously he didn't explicitly say, you know, so and so was starting at left guard now. Like he didn't answer that question. And to be fair, he wasn't asked that question. But do you think the way he talked about Zierer is enough to be like, yeah, I'm expecting him to start on Saturday? That's a great question. Because I don't know. I'm almost not expecting him to start on Saturday. I'm scared that he's not going to start. Yeah. I'm not sure that he starts. I'd love, I think I'd love it. I think it's probably the, from the outside looking in, I think it's a better move. But it didn't really give me like the, like the solid feeling that he's, he's going to be the guy. Talked him up, praised him as far as like working, you know, inside and out. And then he was like, you know, Cole Best had a better game. And then he's like, you know, and Jacob Strand played some. Didn't Wilson, wasn't he the highest rated offensive lineman in that game? For PFF? I'm not sure. He played the most, which can sometimes help you. And he played against the backup defense, which can definitely help you when he moved to right tackle with the twos. Are you looking at them? Yeah, I don't know. The snaps will be... Yeah, the snaps are going to show... Because he played a ton. Yeah, he did. Give me a second. I'll look it up. Okay, got it. Yeah, into your... And then the interior defensive lineman for Florida are Brendan Bett, Jeremiah McLeod. So those are the two names to keep tabs on for Florida. I don't see where it distinguishes between interior, inside or outside. Yeah, what was just his offensive grade? 73. And where was that? He was the highest rated offensive lineman, I believe. Wow. How about that? Yeah, I mean, I would start him. You would start him, right? I think so. I don't again. I don't know if it's the right move, but it felt good. You know what I mean? See, I just don't know why you would handle the personnel in that game that way. If that wasn't the plan. Yeah, that's because if Jacob Strand, if you're like, no, we're going to roll with Jacob Strand, why wouldn't you? Why would you take reps away from him? Right. Is that crazy? No, it's not. It's not. Cole Best, Cole Best was him and Cole Best were like within a tenth of a tenth of a point away from each other that played similar snaps as far as like best graded offensive linemen as a whole. So Cole barely second best. Bad joke. Bad joke. Yeah. I thought the interior looked great. Now level of competition, right? So we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. I also think the other thing that points Auburn's direction is health. And the update we got from Golish yesterday and some of the speculation happening on the Florida side. I think it's a big deal. That's next right here. Unlocked On Auburn. Today's show brought to you by our friends over at Larine Co. They kind of like led the way with some of their like dental gum for your health. But they have these patches now. These pouches, excuse me, that are great. Larine Co pouches are designed to provide clean focus while supporting enamel. At the same time, each pouch contains 50 milligrams of caffeine plus L-theanine and alpha GPC for smooth, steady focus without an energy crash. And since y'all love that I've read this last time, because it's a Larine product, every pouch also contains nanohydroxyapatite, the mineral teeth are made of to provide daily enamel support between brushings. Yeah, give Larine a try right now. Larine Co. is offering our listeners up to 50% off at bylarine.com/locked On College. That is bylarine.com/locked On College for up to 50% off. Today's show also brought to you by our friends over at Indeed. I can't imagine hiring anyone else without using Indeed. It makes the hiring process so much easier. Look, if you're over hiring, you're probably over other stuff as well. And you've got a, you don't have enough time allocated to that. Indeed gets that. 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And I thought Chris Murray was playing a really good against Baylor at times. And then Deshaun had some ups and downs, but regardless, you need them in there. So that is huge, huge news. Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. So looking good there certainly seems like Bryson Washington is healthy, which was kind of a talking point throughout of chunks of the offseason. I thought the way he ran the ball looked really good. I had to predict where he ranks as far as touches and running backs go. I'd say he's third, but you might need three running backs on Saturday. So you love to see that. So I mean, all in all, it does seem like Auburn is in a pretty good spot from a health standpoint, despite a crushing loss of JJ Falk a few weeks before the season. Since then, knock on wood, everybody does seem to be pretty healthy. Didn't love that Byrum was limping around there at the end. I don't think that's anything to be concerned about, but yeah, I think Auburn has done a pretty good job so far. I was concerned for a second with Byrum, and then he scrambled and got a first down for like 11 yards on the very, very next play. Yeah, right. I'm knocking on wood, but it's kind of wild how healthy this team was. We were having a conversation, some buds, they were talking about how impactful tie buster could be as far as they like are trying to develop that interior offensive line. That injury may end up being more impactful than maybe we think. But other than that, JJ Falk, that's awful. He'd play, there's no doubt about that. But man, you're right. Everybody seems pretty healthy and are getting back healthy at the right time. Yeah, we'll see what Florida's injury report is later in the week. It still feels weird that we're talking about that. But Eric Singleton, I think, is the big one. And right now, a lot of folks close to Florida that I've asked, yeah, if I had to guess right now, he doesn't play, which he was one of the biggest portal receivers in this off season. We saw him firsthand, he can be a really effective player. He's gonna go into the draft and then came out to go to Florida. Right. And did he got hurt in the first game? Like he actually did play correct and like rolled his ankle kind of early. I believe that's correct. Yeah. Hasn't been the same since. I don't think he's been out there since I think he's been in a boot. Like you said, no, you're right. You're right. So yeah, he's dangerous. So yeah, yeah, he definitely could be a factor. But yeah, he would be a factor if he was playing 100%. So Kyle, how do people check out everything you've got going on? Go to the Auburn Daily Network anywhere you get a podcast or the Auburn Daily YouTube page where we pump out all our content on a daily basis. Please like the video, please subscribe. If you're tuned in on audio, please subscribe and leave us a review helps to show out a ton. And we will see you next time. This has been Locked On Auburn. Hey, it's Isaac Shade, your host of Amazon Fire TV's College Football Kickoff. Join Kenyon Barner, Jesse Holly, myself and the local hosts of the Locked On Podcast Network each week on Fire TV throughout the season to preview the biggest matchups across college football. Search College Football Kickoff on the Fire TV app.