At this time last year, Gus Malzahn and his Auburn coaching staff were doing their best to get Bo Nix up to speed as the Tigers had an ongoing quarterback competition that ran all summer and into fall camp.

Based on his recent comments during an appearance on “The Paul Finebaum Show,” Malzahn has to be thrilled that he no longer has a true freshman leading his offense.

The way Auburn’s coach sees it, the teams that return experienced signal-callers stand to be at a great advantage when college football does resume.

“Yeah, I think the guys that have veteran quarterbacks back are going to have an advantage not having spring,” Malzahn said on Thursday. “We’ll see what happens once we get back, if they let us do OTAs or whatever that is, but right now it’s great to have a veteran quarterback.

“Of course, Bo Nix we thought did an excellent job last year. That schedule we went through was a complete nightmare. One of the toughest I’ve seen since we’ve been in the SEC. Really think he handled that as well as he could being a true freshman, of course, finished the season strong with winning the Iron Bowl. I know Coach Morris is extremely excited to have a veteran quarterback like Bo Nix to work with when we get back.”

While Nix was far from flawless during his first season in college, he showed plenty of promise and proved that the college game wasn’t too big for him following his outstanding high school career.

Auburn’s quarterback got better as the season went along, too, as Nix did not throw an interception following the month of October while accounting for six touchdowns, 744 passing yards and 99 rushing yards during the final five games of the season.