Why Josh Pate Believes Auburn's Byrum Brown is the Second-Best New SEC Quarterback
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The SEC is seeing eight different teams start with a brand-new quarterback ahead of the 2026 season, and the Auburn Tigers are certainly no exception.
Alex Golesh brought over his highly tenured quarterback, Byrum Brown, to his new program, and former CBS analyst Josh Pate is quite high on the senior ahead of the upcoming season.
In a recent episode of his podcast, the aptly named Josh Pate's College Football Show, Pate ranked Brown as the second-best of the newcomers in the SEC, only behind whoever emerges victorious in Alabama's quarterback battle, because, yes, even though they have yet to settle on a quarterback, Pate is already confident that whoever the Tide chooses will be the best SEC newcomer quarterback.
"There's a lot of arm angle propaganda out there about Byrum Brown right now," he said, "and I have not bought into it. Mainly because it's not an unknown commodity. Byrum Brown has played, like, 9,000 games. We know Byrum Brown, and he knows his supporting cast… He's not having to learn a whole lot new."
Brown's warm Auburn welcome has certainly waned as clips of his throwing motion went viral, as well as a lackluster spring game performance, but neither of those qualities necessarily determine how he will perform in the regular season. What does make a difference, though, is strength of schedule, but Pate is confident Brown is up to the task of playing in one of the most difficult conferences in college football.
"He is playing at a higher level, but they played multiple high-level opponents when he was at USF. So, I don't think it's gonna be cold water to the face, necessarily," he said.
Brown, in last year's season at USF, faced off against top-rated teams like Florida, Miami and even North Texas, which was ranked No. 25 in the country at the time. He took two of those games, though the Bulls did drop a big one against Miami, who ended up competing in the national championship. Brown clearly knows how to win big games against big-time opponents, a quality that has come with the experience he has garnered over the last few years.
"Experience level also matters here, because most of the time, when we're talking about a new quarterback, a lot of the time we're not talking about a guy with experience," Pate said. "Byrum Brown at Auburn has more experience than probably everyone else on this list combined. So, yeah, I think they'll be good at quarterback there."
Of course, mid-summer projections, like spring game performances, do not dictate exactly how a player will perform come the regular season, but Brown continues to receive votes of confidence from a litany of analysts, which bodes well for the Tigers' chances to compete at a high level this season.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/auburn as Why Josh Pate Believes Auburn's Byrum Brown is the Second-Best New SEC Quarterback.
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