Quiet, poised Stidham leads Tigers
ATLANTA — Auburn’s Jarrett Stidham is a quiet and unassuming person.
Not what you might expect from a quarterback in the Southeastern Conference, a league known for producing some brash and boastful signal callers. Personalities like Joe Willie Namath, Johnny Manziel and Cam Newton.
“I think you have to be who you are,” ESPN college football analyst Brock Huard said on the eve of the No. 7 Tigers’ matchup with No. 12 UCF in the Peach Bowl. “If you’re Johnny Manziel, your hair is going to be on fire and you’re going to go light your team up that way. If you’ve got that quiet humility and that’s how your character is built, … you’re going to go about it that matter.”
Stidham isn’t ashamed of who he is.
“I just like to be a good person. I think there is a right way to do things. I just try and be a good person and do the right things all the time,” the Texas native said. “I’m very relaxed. Even on the field, I’m cracking jokes pregame, even during the game. I just like to be even keel. That’s who I am. That’s my mindset.”
It’s a trait Stidham picked up from quarterbacks he admired.
“It’s something I’ve learned over time from watching guys like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady,” Stidham explained. “They’re the guys I’ve idolized growing up. Those two are really good at what they do. I like their approach to not only football, but life itself.”
It was Stidham’s personality that helped him win over his new teammates when he first stepped on Auburn’s campus at the start of the year. A former fourstar recruit out of Stephenville, who was an early enrollee at Baylor in 2015, Stidham was thrust into the starting role late in the season after Bears quarterback Seth Russell went down with a broken collarbone.
Stidham’s decided to transfer came in the offseason in the wake of a sexual assault scandal that rocked the Baylor football program.
It eventually cost coach Art Briles his job. Stidham enrolled at McLennan Community College in 2016 before making the final decision to resume his career at Auburn.
“He came in this spring and he really won his teammates' respect early,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said of his starter. “I think that's really critical for a successful quarterback. [He] won the starting job. You saw him getting better and better throughout the year.”
Stidham’s first start with the Tigers came against Georgia Southern on Sept 2. The following week, he would struggle in a 14-6 loss to then-No. 3 Clemson, a game in which he passed for a season-low 79 yards and was sacked a record 11 times.
It would be the first of three losses during the season, all low points for the quarterback.
“Whether it’s Clemson, LSU or Georgia in the [SEC] Championship … It’s also a great opportunity to learn,” Malzahn said.
Huard believes it was the Oct. 14 loss to LSU, where Auburn gave up a 20-point lead, that this truly became Stidham’s team.
“Him handling that adversity and that’s when you’re defined. It’s not in success in throwing five touchdowns. It’s when you lose and lose a game you could have and should have won. That really defined their season moving forward,” Huard said.
Auburn would go on to upset No. 2 Georgia nearly a month later and a stunning 26-14 win over then-No. 1 Alabama two weeks later sent the Tigers to their first SEC Championship game since 2013.
But any chances of a spot in the College Football Playoff semifinals went out the window with a 28-7 loss to Georgia in the SEC title game, sending Auburn back to Atlanta for a spot in the Peach Bowl.
“Obviously we had hoped to win the SEC championship and so on and so forth, but you know, to be in a New Year's Six Bowl like the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, it's a very big opportunity for this team,” Stidham said.
“Looking back on it, I didn't really know how everything would play out. I'm thrilled with the outcome.”