AU FOOTBALL: Spring ends with quarterback battle unsettled

In a perfect world, Gene Chizik said, Auburn would have named its starting quarterback by now.

You know where the rest of this is going.

Though he and offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn said one month ago that they desired to find a starting quarterback by the end of spring practice, Chizik said Sunday he wasn’t disappointed it didn’t come to fruition.

“When you’re in these situations, it takes more than 15 practices, really, to find out who the guy is, especially when you’re inserting everything new,” Chizik said. “They’ll have a while to digest the offense. They all need four months to prepare. But I’m not disappointed … it just really didn’t unfold that way.”

So, as a result, the past month’s competition between Neil Caudle and Kodi Burns will be restarted when Auburn begins two-a-days in August — just with a few new characters (Chris Todd, incoming freshmen) and a larger amount of Malzahn’s offense installed.

But there’s plenty to be done from now until then.

Burns and Caudle will be spending that time learning the intricacies of Malzahn’s offense and executing it in “voluntary” workouts, where the coaching staff is, per NCAA rules, not allowed to watch. Workouts include passing drills and 7-on-7 drills, all of which are supervised by upperclassmen.

“This summer is the measuring stick of how good we want to be,” Burns said. “It’s going to take leadership at the quarterback position as well as the older guys to get everybody out there to make sure they run the right routes, run the right plays, and just try to get better.”

Both Chizik and Malzahn did not discount the possibility of Todd or one of Auburn’s true freshmen quarterbacks having a realistic chance at the job.

Todd practiced minimally this spring, as he is still in the recovery process from offseason shoulder surgery. Athletic quarterback Tyrik Rollison of Sulphur Springs, Texas, and Leroy’s Clint Moseley were signed in February and are expected to be at fall camp.

They’ll just have to do something extra special from the start to usurp the entrenched Burns and Caudle.

“We’re going to give everybody a chance,” Malzahn said. “He’ll have a chance coming in here to win the job. It’ll have to be fairly quick and we’ll have to make a decision fairly quick so we can get reps with our main guys.

“All positions are open.”

The status of redshirt freshman Barrett Trotter, who was competing directly with Burns and Caudle before going down with an ACL injury in a scrimmage Thursday, remains uncertain. Some published reports have said Trotter will not be available for the entire 2009 season, but neither Chizik nor Malzahn would confirm that.

“I know he’s a competitor and I know he’s going to get back as fast as he can,” Malzahn said. “We’ll just have to wait and see on that.”

Malzahn said he wasn’t going to take too much from Saturday’s A-Day game, where both Burns and Caudle looked effective running the first-team offense. There are 14 other practices to consider, so the fact that Burns threw half as many passes Saturday as Caudle is irrelevant, Malzahn said.

“It’s kind of a body of work in an evaluation thing from the first day of spring to the spring game,” Malzahn said. “Even though he only got a few chances to throw, we got a chance to evaluate him and I see the things that he needs to work on, as well as Neil Caudle, also.”

Caudle said Malzahn will meet with him and Burns individually sometime this week.

Both Caudle and Burns have acknowledged that they’re disappointed that the competition isn’t over yet, but that’ll do neither of them good heading into an important summer.

“I’m kind of disappointed about it, but at the same time I feel like I went out there and did pretty good,” Burns said. “There are a lot of things I can get better at. It’s been really tough for me, but I’m not worried about it. I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’m not going to get my head down.”

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