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Byrum Brown, QB Auburn

My most-drafted second-round quarterback, on four of my sixteen teams. Four games in, he has 40% of Auburn's carries and 25.9 points a game, and Saturday he plays at Tennessee against another quarterback I own.

25% exposure across 16 drafts · ADP 23.8 · my board had him 24th · stats through Sept. 26

Byrum Brown has 103.4 half-PPR points in four games, 25.9 a game. That ranks 11th among the 58 quarterbacks in Underdog's player pool who have played four games in our box-score data. The market took him as the 7th quarterback off the board.

So he is not paying off at a QB7 rate yet. He is also not the problem. The interesting part is how he is scoring, because it is not mostly with his arm.

Why he cost a second-round pick

Brown followed his coach. Alex Golesh left South Florida for Auburn, and Brown committed to Auburn a little more than a month later (ESPN, Jan. 6, 2026).

ESPN's figures for his last season at USF: 3,158 passing yards, 28 touchdowns and 7 interceptions, plus 1,008 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns. Our box scores agree on every one of those numbers. A quarterback who runs for a thousand yards is the most valuable thing in superflex best ball, and the room priced him that way.

The four games

Week 1, Baylor, a 17-16 win in Atlanta on Sept. 5: 26 of 35 for 259 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions, plus 21 carries for 27 yards and a touchdown. 16.1 points. The AP recap on ESPN quotes Golesh: "There's three plays he would tell you he wants back, and we'll take that in Week 1."

Week 2, Southern Miss, a 43-8 win on Sept. 12: 17 of 28 for 223 yards and two touchdowns, 13 carries for 88 yards, and he caught a 5-yard touchdown pass. 32.7 points (AP recap). ESPN's box score now lists him at 18 of 29 for 226, a stat change worth about a tenth of a point.

Week 3, Florida, a 44-39 loss on Sept. 19: 20 of 35 for 271 yards, three touchdowns and an interception, 18 carries for 65 yards and a touchdown. 34.3 points (AP recap). One of those touchdowns was a 35-yard Hail Mary with 24 seconds left, so part of this line is end-of-game luck.

Week 4, Vanderbilt, a 21-15 win on Sept. 26: 18 of 27 for 140 yards, a touchdown and an interception, 10 carries for 57 yards and a touchdown. 20.3 points (AP recap).

The number that matters: 40% of the carries

Brown has 62 of Auburn's 154 rushing attempts, 40%. Auburn's leading running back, Jeremiah Cobb, has 41.

How I count it: his rushes divided by every rushing attempt Auburn logged in the ESPN box scores. College stats count sacks as runs, which is why the Baylor line reads 21 carries for 27 yards. His designed-run share is lower than 40%, but even with sacks taken out he is the closest thing Auburn has to a lead back.

That is what keeps his floor up. His two quietest games, Baylor and Vanderbilt, still came in at 16.1 and 20.3 points, and a rushing touchdown carried both. He has run one in three of his four games.

The passing is the part still short of the price. Six touchdowns and five interceptions in four games is not what a QB7 is supposed to look like, and against Vanderbilt the offense managed 279 total yards.

What I paid

Four teams, all in The Tailgate, all between picks 20 and 24, right on his ADP. My preseason board had him 24th, so the board and the room agreed exactly. Two of those four teams also have Keshaun Singleton, Auburn's most-targeted receiver (27% of the targets), who also played for South Florida last season, per our box scores.

Three of the four also have Faizon Brandon. That matters this week.

Saturday: at Tennessee, against my other quarterback

Auburn plays at Tennessee at 3:30 p.m. ET. Brandon is my most-drafted quarterback (his spotlight is here), so on three of my teams both quarterbacks are in the same game.

The projections and ownership are ours, from the ATO builder as of Friday night. The salaries and the line are the market's. Tennessee has allowed 3.1 yards a carry (32nd of 138 teams in our data) and 6.6 yards a pass attempt (59th).

At about 22% projected ownership on DraftKings, Brown is one of the most popular quarterbacks on the slate. The case for him is the same one as in best ball: if Auburn is behind, he keeps running, and the rushing floor travels. The case against is that a road underdog with a 23.5 team total does not leave much room for a ceiling game unless he scores twice on the ground. Our own Game Value column is less kind still: it makes Tennessee a 12.5-point favorite, against the market's 6.5.

Playoff weeks

Samford, an FCS team, in Week 12 is as soft as a playoff matchup gets. Mississippi State on the road in Week 11 means facing Kamario Taylor, the top-scoring quarterback in our data, which is a shootout risk worth having. Alabama away in the final week is the hard one.

Verdict: take him at this price again, but no higher

These are Underdog best ball teams. Nothing gets traded or dropped, so the verdict is about what I do in my next drafts at this price.

A quarterback with 40% of his team's carries is the shape I want in superflex, and QB11 production at a QB7 price is a small miss, not a bust. I would take him again in the 20s. I would not reach ahead of his ADP for him while the passing sits at six touchdowns and five interceptions.

What would change my mind

If his carries drop toward single digits against Tennessee and Georgia, the floor goes with them. Week 4 was already his lowest at 10.

If the interceptions stop, the passing catches up to the legs, and QB7 starts to look cheap.

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Exposure figures from my own Underdog draft exports. ADP from Underdog best ball rankings. Statistics and quotes from published reporting. Nothing here is betting advice, and I am telling you what I did, not what you should do.