AUBURN, Ala. – With first-year offensive coordinator Mike Bobo calling plays, Auburn's offense will feature enough throwback elements to remind Tiger fans why Auburn earned the RBU nickname in the first place, but there will be a limit.
A Google search for "Bo Nix" and "Wishbone" will come up empty.
"Somebody told me one time, 'You've got to let them know you're at the ballpark,'" Bobo said. "Sometimes there's no better way to do that than to get under center and run power. We want to have a physical run game. You can be a lot more physical sometimes when you're under center."
To establish that physical run game, Auburn will occasionally employ two tight ends and a fullback, formations that have becoming increasingly rare during college football's passing boom.
It won't be exclusively a turn-back-the-clock system. Bobo plans for Auburn to be proficient in the passing game with all of the complexity sophisticated aerial attacks require.
"We want to be able to do everything," Bobo said. "We don't want to be just under center. We don't want to be just spread. We want to be a wide-open, pro-style offense."
Bobo's first Auburn offense will feature the SEC's two most recent freshmen of the year in the backfield in Nix (2019) and running back Tank Bigsby.
"I've been very impressed with Bo Nix since I've been here," Bobo said. "His work ethic, No. 1, in the offseason. He has an athletic skill set.
"Tank, similar to Bo Nix, he's constantly calling every day, he's FaceTiming, he's wanting to know about run schemes and protections, and how he can get better. He's not complacent at all. He doesn't think he's arrived.
"That's our job as coaches is to continue to push guys, but the great ones have it in them. He's serious about wanting to be the best player he can be, not just for himself but for Auburn."
Bobo and Auburn head coach Bryan Harsin go back a decade, when Harsin was the offensive coordinator at Texas and Bobo was Georgia's OC.
"We got to sit in each other's quarterback rooms and talk a little bit of ball," said Bobo, who later as Colorado State's head coach competed against Harsin's Boise State teams for five seasons. "They were tough. They expected to win every time they stepped on the field. You could feel that from them when they came on the field."
The son of a Georgia high school coach, first in Rome then in Thomasville, Bobo attended Pat Dye's football camps for four summers, beginning in fourth grade. Given that connection with Coach Dye at a young age, it should come as no surprise that Bobo, a former University of Georgia quarterback, has a fondness for physicality.
"We were only two-and-a-half hours away," he said. "Came to watch them practice a lot. I have a lot of memories from Auburn.
"It reminds me of some of those south Georgia towns where it's football and the community. This is the ultimate college town when you think about Auburn University.
"Being able to come to a place like Auburn with the tradition that Auburn has, I just really couldn't pass it up."
Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo watches Sawyer Pate throw during Auburn's open practice at Jordan-Hare Stadium
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer
