Auburn expected to start Deuce Knight at QB vs. Mercer

Auburn is expected to start freshman quarterback Deuce Knight against Mercer on Saturday, CBS Sports‘ Tom Loy first reported. On3’s Pete Nakos has since confirmed the news. It’ll be Knight’s first career start.

Auburn started quarterback Ashton Daniels in its last two games, but on Monday, Tigers interim coach DJ Durkin revealed the program had decided to redshirt Daniels for the remainder of the season to preserve his season of eligibility. Thus, Auburn was left with two choices for its remaining two games of the season: Jackson Arnold or Deuce Knight.

Arnold transferred to Auburn from Oklahoma this past offseason and started the Tigers’ first eight games of the season. The Tigers were 0-4 in conference play with Arnold starting behind center.

Arnold started again in Auburn’s showdown against Arkansas in Week 9. Alas, he was benched after throwing a pick-six in the second quarter. Daniels took over the offense and guided Auburn to a 33-24 win over the Razorbacks.

Unlike Arnold, Knight has little collegiate experience. He’s only appeared in one game for Auburn this season. He completed 2-of-his-5 pass attempts for a total of 40 yards in Auburn’s Week 2 win over Ball State.

Nonetheless, Knight boasts loads of potential. Knight was the No. 25 overall player and No. 5 quarterback in the 2025 recruiting cycle, according to the Rivals Industry Rankings, a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all three primary recruiting media services.

Moreover, Knight has reportedly looked strong at practice. Earlier this week, DJ Durkin raved about the first-year QB.

“You can see a difference in him. He’s just lit up at practice,” Durkin said. “For any guy, when you’re out there practicing and not playing much, that becomes a monotonous task, especially with a guy that has played so well and so much as he’s done throughout his career like most guys coming in out of high school. That’s a difficult transition.

“He’s really done a great job these past two weeks of preparing. You can see that it’s really clicked the light on for him. I’m excited to see him get out there and go. He is extremely talented and he’s very coachable. He pays attention to details of things we’re asking of him. The challenge for him, man, is just to go let it loose. Go be you and go play, and I think he’ll do a great job.”

Auburn will face off against Mercer on Saturday at 1 p.m. CT. The game will air live on SEC Network+.