Tag: nick marshall

Auburn football: Top 10 career passing yards by a Tiger

From Pat Sullivan to Stan White to Bo Nix, a long list of talented quarterbacks have played in an Auburn uniform.

Auburn has had an illustrious list of quarterbacks play in the burnt orange and navy blue but only the best of the best appear on this list.

From Pat Sullivan winning the 1971 Heisman Trophy to Bo Nix currently slinging it down the field for the Tigers, Auburn fans have cheered on some amazing signal-callers.

Here are the top 10 players with the most career passing yards in Auburn program history.

Auburn football: Top 10 passing yards in a single game by a Tiger

From Patrick Nix to Dameyune Craig to Nick Marshall, Auburn has had some quarterbacks throw for a lot of yards in a single game.

For much of its history, Auburn has been known for running the ball and producing great running backs while the quarterback position was much more of a game manager.

That hasn’t been the case for the past 25-plus years, though, as the Tigers have had some quality passers coming through the Plains. From Patrick Nix to Jason Campbell to Cam Newton, Auburn fans have seen some exciting signal-callers put on the burnt orange and navy blue.

Yet who has had the best games of them all? Here are the top 10 passing yards by an Auburn quarterback in a single game with three quarterbacks making the list twice and one surprise omission.

All-Auburn Offensive Team during Gus Malzahn era

Taking a look at the elite of the elite for Auburn on offense during the eight years of the Gus Malzahn era on the Plains.

The Gus Malzahn era at Auburn started out with a bang on the offensive side of the ball has Nick Marshall, Tre Mason and company lit the scoreboard on fire on their way to a SEC title and spot in the BCS National Championship Game.

While the Tigers’ offense would never reach those heights again under Malzahn during his eight years in charge, there were still plenty of great offensive players to come to the Plains during that time.

But who is the top of the top and the elite of the elite? We name our All-Auburn Offensive Team from the Malzahn era along with who would serve as second string.

(Note: When it comes to offensive linemen, we did not choose someone for each position but the top five guys that made the biggest impact.)

Happy Anniversary, ‘Miracle at Jordan-Hare!’

The “Miracle at Jordan-Hare ” happened exactly seven years ago today. Relive the magical pass from Nick Marshall to Ricardo Louis.

It has been seven years since Nick Marshall dropped back on fourth down, threw a prayer of a pass down the field and Ricardo Louis came down with the tipped ball as Jordan-Hare Stadium erupted in a crowd of noise hardly ever heard in any stadium anywhere.

For the sake of Auburn fans everywhere, and to rub it in to those Georgia fans who are reading, let’s take a look at the “Miracle at Jordan-Hare” once again.

Shea’s Favorite Auburn Games- No. 8 Auburn vs Texas A&M 2013

The Tigers went into College Station and took Johnny Manziel and the Aggies down.

Can you believe that Auburn football returns in eight days!? I sure can’t, but to keep this countdown train going we’re reminiscing on my eighth favorite Auburn game!

Number 8: Auburn vs Texas A&M 2013

After losing to LSU in a deluge during the early part of the 2013 season, Auburn was getting no love by any of the college football talking heads when they had to travel to College Station to take on Johnny Manziel and a top-ten Texas A&M team.

Manziel gashed the Tigers in 2012, as a freshman I went to that game and witnessed the first half of that massacre. I left at halftime because number one, it was freezing and number two, Texas A&M was beating Auburn 42-7. My only regret in leaving that game was that we’d left to go to a restaurant where I found a suspicious hair in my pasta. Texas A&M put up nearly 700 yards of total offense against the Tigers, and Manziel went on to win the Heisman that year.

The 2013 Auburn team was a totally different animal from what Manziel had faced in the year before, and boy did he figure that lesson out the hard way.

The Aggies struck first with a 26-yard touchdown catch by Mike Evans. Then Nick Marshall and our boys went to work. The Tigers capitalized off of two interceptions thrown by Manziel in the first quarter and the game turned into an old-fashioned shoot-out.

I traveled back home to Huntsville for the weekend to watch the game with my dad. That day Auburn couldn’t stop the Manziel-Evans connection and that just gave us both fits.

You know I’m 100% his daughter because we both have the same coping mechanism strategy during stressful Auburn games. Pacing. He’d pace in front of our living room television, while I’d walk circles around our kitchen island. Finally my mom told us we both needed to sit down because we were driving our dogs crazy, and the pacing wasn’t helping anybody.

It had seemed as though every time we started pacing that Texas A&M would start to make a run, but then I discovered that as soon as I started to pet my dog Gracie that Auburn would start having better luck.

“I’m not superstitious, but I am a little ‘sticious”-Michael Scott.

That nasty Sammie Coates stiff arm? Every major run by Tre Mason? The heroic fourth down sack made by Dee Ford to end the game? They all happened while I was petting my dog.

That 2013 team never went down without a fight, and neither did my dog Gracie. We lost Gracie to lymphoma in 2017 after she put up one heck of a good fight. I miss that team and I miss my dog.

War Eagle forever.

(Editor’s note: This is also the game when, excited about the outcome, I jumped headfirst into what I thought was the deep end of the pool. It was not. Will spare you the infamous ambulance selfie.)

Shea’s Favorite Auburn Games – No. 10: Tigers vs Mississippi State 2013

The Tigers matchup against Mississippi State in 2013 served as Nick Marshall’s coming out party as the quarterback at Auburn.

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We’re only ten days away from the start of this football season, so to get that football feeling going I’m counting down 10 of my favorite Auburn games within the last 20 years!

#10: Auburn vs Mississippi State 2013

Why it’s up there:

This game happened my sophomore year at Auburn. The Tigers went 3-9 my freshman year and had lost 10 consecutive conference games in a row. It was Gus Malzahn’s first year as head coach and everyone was desperately looking for a glimmer of hope from this 3-0 Auburn team.

We were still familiarizing ourselves with a quarterback named Nick Marshall who’d transferred from Garden City Community College out in Kansas. All eyes were upon him in his SEC debut against a talented Dak Prescott. Little did we know this would become Marshall’s coming out party.

College football world, meet Nick Marshall.

The game:

Marshall and the Tigers heated up early on offense. With a Cody Parkey field goal and a 76-yard touchdown pass to Quan Bray, the Tigers led the Bulldogs 11-6 at the end of the first quarter.

Dak and the Bulldogs found their rhythm early in the third quarter and you could feel the pressure mounting against Auburn. Two interceptions and fumble looked like they would kill the Tigers and the defense was getting absolutely torched on the ground, but then this play happened and the stadium once again came to life.

Yes, Nick Marshall threw a pass which was deflected by a Mississippi State defender but instead of letting the ball go to the ground the former defensive back turned quarterback caught the ball and rushed for 37 yards. You know who makes plays like that? Freak athletes like Nick Marshall. Unreal, I will never forget this play for as long as I live.

The Tigers settled for a field goal on that drive to make the score 20-17. The score continued to stay at 20-17 until there were only ten seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. The student section was absolutely bananas during this final drive. I’d finished my hotdogs by this point and had been reduced to a nervous wreck. Nobody in that stadium wanted to go to overtime against Mississippi State, especially CJ Uzomah who caught the game winning pass.

This play was the catalyst for Auburn’s success in the 2013 season. I watched it at least a hundred times before going to bed that night because I was still in disbelief that the Tigers were winning again! Football was exciting again on the Plains and this game was just the beginning of a season that eternally lives on in college football folklore.

AUBURN FOOTBALL IS GREAT AGAIN!

Flashback: Auburn beats Wazzu, Connor Halliday says Tigers’ QB can’t throw ball

Washington State quarterback Connor Halliday certainly didn’t think much of Nick Marshall after Auburn defeated the Cougars.

It was seven years ago today that Auburn’s magical 2013 season got off with a 31-24 victory over Washington State in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

With the game on the line and the Tigers up seven with 4:46 remaining, Cougars quarterback Connor Halliday dropped back and threw an interception, basically sealing the win for Auburn. It was his third interception of the game.

Yet after the game, it was Halliday that was criticizing Auburn  quarterback Nick Marshall.

“They ran the ball real, real, real well,” Halliday told The Spokesman-Review. “If they could find a quarterback, they’d be a top-five team in the nation. They just don’t have a guy who can throw it. That running game was something very, very impressive.”

Funny how things turned out for Marshall and the Tigers that season.

You can watch the entire game below:

Former Georgia football HC Mark Richt offers opinions on CFB transfers

Mark Richt once declared that “life is too short” to prevent collegiate athletes from pursuing transfer options.

It’s an intriguing change of opinion, especially from a man who never blocked any of his players’ transfer waivers in his time as the University of Georgia’s head football coach.

Mark Richt once declared that “life is too short” to prevent collegiate athletes from pursuing transfer options.

While employed as Top Dawg in Athens, Richt allowed tailback J.J. Green to transfer to in-state foe and yearly opponent Georgia Tech. He allowed quarterback Nick Marshall and safety Tray Matthews to transfer to conference rival and fellow yearly opponent Auburn. Multiple others switched allegiances to teams the Bulldogs chance facing every season.

“If the kid wants to go…let him go wherever he wants to go.”

Along nearly fifteen years in Athens, Mark Richt held true to these statements.

That was until, early in his tenure as the Miami Hurricanes’ head coach, Richt blocked the transfer of tailback Gus Edwards. Edwards, a redshirt junior at the time, expressed his intention to transfer to Syracuse University to be closer to his family, which included his newborn child.

Syracuse is by no means a football powerhouse but, as with Miami, is aligned with the Atlantic Coast Conference. Richt may not have made the decision single handedly, but it was obvious that the overseers of his alma mater’s athletic department wanted no part in facing a talented former Cane in conference play.

Edwards transferred to Big Ten program Rutgers and has since maintained a two-year roster spot with the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens.

When this situation unfolded, I told myself that Richt’s hands were tied and his administrators were pulling all the strings. My opinion changed when he doubled down on his new viewpoint.

Sparking a conversation on collegiate athletes’ compensation, the former head coach was met by overwhelming criticism.

It’s a quicker turnaround in four years from Richt than the Hurricanes ever received.