Birmingham Bowl: Auburn defense faces challenge with Memphis quarterback
Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch. (Joe Murphy)
Gus Malzahn is more than a little impressed with Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch.
“He’s phenomenal,” the Auburn coach said of the signal-caller his Tigers will face at 11 a.m. Wednesday in the Birmingham Bowl at Legion Field and seen nationally on ESPN. “He can do everything. He can make all the throws. He can run it. They’ve got some very talented receivers to go with him.”
The redshirt junior has thrown for 3,670 yards and 28 touchdowns while completing 69 percent of his attempts this season, picking up where he started midway through the 2014 campaign.
“There are people talking about his future and things like that,” interim Memphis coach Darrell Dickey said. “His future as far as we’re concerned is Dec. 30 at 11 o’clock in the morning. But he has been the thing that has really gotten us over the hump.”
The man from Deltona, Fla., has created some buzz as a possible early draft pick to the National Football League. Lance Zierlein, an NFL Media draft analyst, saw Lynch and the Tigers take on Houston, and he, too, came away impressed.
[Read Lance Zierlein’s profile of Paxton Lynch]
“Based on the tape I saw heading into this game and how he played tonight, it is highly likely that Lynch will be a heavily targeted prospect by NFL teams when he does pull the trigger,” Zierlein wrote on nfl.com, “but I want to stress that he’s still a work in progress.”
As a draft prospect, Zierlein said Lynch played well and showed all the qualities he wanted to see. “However, it is worth noting that he couldn’t close out a game with a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter,” Zierlein wrote. “He led a drive late in fourth quarter, but a missed 48-yard field goal sealed Memphis’ fate in a 35-34 loss. Even though he lost the lead and ultimately the game, he showed good poise throughout the contest.”
Dickey said Memphis has a lot of players in the program – including Lynch – who suffered through some tough times and have made a lot of progress.
“We ride the arm and the legs of a great quarterback,” the coach said, “but we ride the abilities of a lot of very good football players. We can’t just rely on Paxton. But he is an outstanding football player.”
Lynch stands 6-foot-7 and weighs 245 pounds. Some presume a quarterback of his stature would be awkward but that’s not Lynch, who was an outstanding high school basketball player.
“He can run. He can extend plays. He can run the option. He can run the zone read. His athletic ability is what makes him different from a lot of your other real tall quarterbacks who can throw the ball. He can definitely do that but he can add some dimensions with his running game,” Dickey said.
