All eyes will be on Bo Nix on Saturday as the Oregon quarterback opens the 2022 campaign with arguably the toughest first assignment of all Power 5 QBs: defending national champion Georgia.

With apologies to Notre Dame quarterback Tyler Buchner — who draws Ohio State’s defense in Week 1 — Buchner at least was with the Fighting Irish as a freshman last year, and OSU’s defense struggled to the point where they replaced defensive coordinators.

Nix is in altogether new surroundings this year, having landed in Eugene by way of Auburn. This isn’t being thrown in at the deep end. This is being chucked off the back of an ocean freighter without a life jacket.

Can Nix handle the pressure? That’s not just a question for Saturday. There may be no Pac-12 quarterback whose own fate is tied so directly to his team’s.

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In a vacuum, Nix’s Auburn stats aren’t that bad.

In 34 starts spread across 3 years as Tigers starter, Nix went 628-of-1,057 (59.4 percent) passing for 7,251 yards and 39 touchdowns with 16 interceptions for a passing efficiency rating of 126.2.

But that cumulative rating — 126.2 — would’ve ranked 9th in the Pac-12 last year. It wouldn’t have even placed in the SEC top 10, nor did his actual 2021 number, 130.0. In 2020, Nix ranked No. 9 at 123.9 — far behind league-leader Mac Jones at 203.1 — and as a true freshman in 2019, Nix’s 125.0 rating ranked No. 7, in line with Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond (131.1) and Vanderbilt’s Riley Neal (117.0) and far behind LSU QB Joe Burrow’s 202.0.

The man he’s replacing with the Ducks, former Oregon quarterback Anthony Brown, ranked 5th in the league last year with a 141.0 rating, while leading the league in completions, attempts and yards.

But a more nuanced look at Nix’s numbers reveal some scary truths.

Auburn was 1-5 when Nix had a passer rating of under 95 for a game. Basically, if Nix laid an egg, so did the Tigers.

Nix’s inconsistency first reared its ugly head as a freshman in Week 6, when the 5-0 and seventh-ranked Tigers were suffocated by the No. 10  Florida Gators in the Swamp, 24-13. Nix went 11-for-27 that day, with one touchdown and three interceptions and just 145 passing yards. Two weeks later, in a 23-20 loss to No. 2 LSU, Nix finished with an 84.3 passer rating after going 15-of-35 for 157 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. In between those two games? How about 12-of-17 passing for 176 yards and 3 touchdowns in a 51-10 win at Arkansas, with a 215.8 passer rating?

That fluctuation flummoxed and frustrated Auburn fans who could never get a read on him. Was he the guy who threw 3 touchdowns against the likes of Kentucky, LSU, Florida and Akron the past 3 years? Or the guy who threw multiple interceptions against Oregon, Florida, South Carolina and Alabama as a freshman and sophomore? Was he the fleet-footed dual-threat who has 18 career rushing touchdowns, or a liability who has five games with negative rushing yards in his career?

Which Bo is Oregon getting? Good Bo or Bad Bo?

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The wild card in all of this, coincidentally, may not even be Bo Nix.

Dan Lanning’s hiring of former Auburn offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham set in motion a reunion between protégé and coach that might define Oregon’s season.

Nix played some of the best ball of his career as a freshman, including his first collegiate game, a 27-21 Auburn win over Oregon, which culminated in Nix’s last-minute, 26-yard, game-winning touchdown pass to Seth Williams. You have to wonder what Nix’s career would’ve looked like had Dillingham stayed in Auburn, and not left for Florida State, where he helmed the offense the past 2 seasons.

Would Nix have avoided some of those pothole games, when he seemed to continuously stub his toe? Would he have felt the need to improvise as often as he has, if he’d felt more familiar with a steady voice from the get-go?

Dillingham has made it clear he’s not so much looking for the big play as the ability to avoid the bad ones.

“When bad things happen, do we make a bad play horrible?,” Dillingham told DuckWire’s Zachary Neal. “I think that is what separates great quarterbacks. It’s not necessarily the great plays that make SportsCenter, but do your bad plays make SportsCenter? When your bad plays don’t make SportsCenter, that’s when you’re a great quarterback.”

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Against a swarming Georgia defense last season, Nix struggled, completing 21-of-38 passes for 217 yards and an adjusted yards per attempt average of 4.5, with 1 pick and no touchdowns. He was also sacked 4 times and finished with negative-16 rushing yards.

If he faces the same kind of pressure this time around — though Oregon’s veteran line has plenty of big-game experience — then the goal is simple: Don’t make a bad situation worse.

Some goes for the season as a whole.

Oregon faces perhaps the biggest first-week challenge in all of college football.

Nix can’t let this one game define him. There’s too much season left, and the Ducks have far too much potential.