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Jarrett Stidham: Leaving Baylor ‘propelled me to come to a great place’ in Auburn
By Paul Harvey
Published:
The Auburn Tigers are riding high after demolishing No. 1 Georgia and rising all the up to No. 6 in the latest Playoff Top 25.
The Tigers still have a shot at making the Playoff after the win, and one of the driving forces on the team is QB Jarrett Stidham. Stidham completed 16 of 23 passes for 214 yards and 4 total TDs in the upset of the Bulldogs and is looking to finish strong in his first year with Auburn.
Stidham joined the Tigers after competing with Baylor during his freshman year in 2015. He left the program after an ugly investigation rocked the Baylor football team and was out of football for a season before he arrived in Auburn.
In a recent appearance on the Herbstreit and Fitzsimmons Podcast with Kirk Herbstreit and Ian Fitzsimmons, Stidham was asked about his journey after leaving Baylor. He said it was a long ride but is happy to be with the Tigers:
“Kind of been a long story, long process, but obviously I went to Baylor thinking I’m going to be here the next 3-4 years of my life,” Stidham said on the podcast. “After my freshman year, everything just kind of turned all of a sudden and I had to make a change. It was hard to sit there and make that change, but just kind of did the best thing for me, for my career…It was really hard to sit there and do that, but at the end of the day it propelled me to come to a great place like Auburn…I’m happy to be here.”
Stidham shared the interesting story of how he ran an offensive scout team three times a week for a Waco high school during his year away from football. Both Herbstreit and Fitzsimmons were intrigued by the revelation, and Stidham said he approached the coach, who was a family friend, with his proposition:
“Hey coach, do you mind if I go against your defense everday, run the JV scout team so to speak and just try to get some sort of live reps,” Stidham explained. “He was all for it, I had a lot of fun with it.”
It has been a crazy ride for Stidham, but not every game has turned out as awesome as the win over Georgia. He recalled the blown 20-point lead in the loss to LSU but says that the team learned a lot from that game:
“It really sucks whenever you’re up 20 points on the road and you give that lead up and lose the game,” said Stidham. “It’s really disappointing and heartbreaking, but we’ve learned a lot from it…We had the ability to be a phenomenal team in our league. We knew what was there. After that, we really understood that we have to do all the little things that really matter.”
You can hear the full podcast here.
Auburn will look to keep its Playoff hopes alive over the next two weeks. A matchup with Louisiana-Monroe is on hand for this weekend before the Iron Bowl game with Alabama. Saturday’s kickoff is set for 12 pm EST on ESPN2.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
