TJ Finley Transferring to Auburn

TJ Finley is officially tiger bait.

Early Monday afternoon the rising sophomore quarterback announced today on his Twitter that he would be furthering his career at Auburn.

Finley entered the portal earlier this month after it became obvious he’d be the odd man out in the starting quarterback battle. While Ed Orgeron insisted it was a four-way competition between Finley, Myles Brennan, Max Johnson, and Garrett Nussmeier, the reality was it’s a Brennan/Johnson battle.

Finley started five games for LSU after Brennan was lost for the year after week three’s loss at Missouri. Finley went 2-3 as a starter, completing 57 percent of his passes for 941 yards, five touchdowns and five interceptions. Against Auburn, Finley had an afternoon to forget in LSU’s 48-11 loss. Finley was 13-24 with two interceptions and lost a fumble that was returned for a score.

Finley will now head to The Plains and try to unseat incumbent quarterback Bo Nix. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen as Nix has been Auburn’s starting quarterback the last two years. That said the Gus Bus has left town and Auburn is now being led by Bryan Harsin. At the very least it looks like Finley will be second on Auburn’s depth chart with a chance to start in 2022 at the earliest.

There was speculation Finley would wind up transferring within the conference. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Texas A&M all apparently had varying degrees of contact with Finley and his family upon his entrance into the transfer portal. Ultimately Finley decided to trade in his purple and gold tiger stripes for the orange and blue variety.

Finley will return to Tiger Stadium on October 2. In a related note, Auburn hasn’t won in Baton Rouge since 1999.