Byrum Brown didn’t exactly come out of the gate quite as strong as many fans of the Auburn Tigers expected from him, a quality that was apparent when ESPN’s Cole Cubelic, an Auburn graduate, and Roman Harper, an Alabama graduate, graded his performance in Week 1

For his efforts against the Baylor Bears, Cubelic bestowed Brown with a C+ grade, while Harper was a touch more critical in his ranking, as Brown earned a C grade in his eyes. Of course, these rankings are only for Brown’s week one performance, so they are absolutely subject to change as the season drags on.

“Long way to go, I need him to be cleaner,” Harper said. “I think he saw the things that he needed to see… You’re doing a good job of diagnosing, but overall, you gotta be able to move the defense a little more with your eyes.”

In this video, Cubelic and Harper are dissecting footage of Brown’s play against Baylor, particularly the clips where he threw one of the three interceptions that were attributed to him throughout the game. 

This aspect of Brown’s performance was highly uncharacteristic, as he threw only seven interceptions throughout his entire 2025 season with the South Florida Bulls, a number he nearly halved in one game with the Tigers. The good news for Brown fans is that his head coach and offensive coordinator, Alex Golesh and Joel Gordon, have accepted blame for two of the three interceptions, though the third was, and still is, very much on Brown.

Brown also struggled to rush the ball effectively throughout the game, averaging less than 1.5 yards per carry, another highly uncharacteristic quality of Brown’s debut with the Tigers, though he did still manage to rush for the game-winning touchdown.

So, for now, Brown got the job done when it mattered, but teams in the SEC are likely to not be as mistake-prone as the Bears were, especially in week one. Thankfully, the Tigers have a matchup with Southern Mississippi this coming Saturday, which should prove to be a valuable learning stage as the Tigers continue to figure out how they’d like to run their offense.

Byrum Brown may not have lit the world on fire in his first game with the Tigers, but Auburn’s offense is still very much in a developmental stage at this point in the season. As the Tigers’ offense finds its identity, expect Brown to follow.

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