The Auburn Tigers earned a stress free victory over the Mercer Bears on Saturday afternoon at Jordan-Hare Stadium, but the biggest story of the day was far from the final score.

In an effort to preserve the red shirt eligibility for next season of starting quarterback Ashton Daniels, who took over for Jackson Arnold several weeks ago, Daniels was sat so as not to go over the maximum games allowed to still have redshirt eligibility.

Instead of bringing back Arnold though, DJ Durkin decided he was going to give his young freshman former five-star a shot and announced this week Deuce Knight was going to be starting the game.

Of course, the assumption was for Knight to get some reps against an FCS opponent and that Daniels would be brought back for the Iron Bowl the following week, but with the way Knight played against Mercer, it has to at least open up a question.

By the sounds of it, the plan is still to play Daniels, but should there be some consideration of changing again?

Knight was absolutely phenomenal, accounting for six total touchdowns with four on the ground and two through the air.

The fireworks started right away, and Knight ran for a 75-yard score on the very first play of the entire game:

Later in the quarter, he ran for another long score on just his second carry of the game:

He finished with 239 yards through the air and another 162 on the ground to go along with the six scores, looking more than comfortable in his first real action in college football.

Though it may have seemed unthinkable a couple of weeks ago after Daniels’ huge day against Vanderbilt, Durkin has to at least consider playing Knight in the Iron Bowl.

In reality, this is probably unlikely to give a freshman his first SEC start against a great Alabama defense in such a big rivalry game, however it certainly seems like some sort of package to get Knight involved is very much in the cards.

Should Daniels struggle early though, Durkin will not hesitate to put Knight in the game despite the magnitude.

The way Knight played this past weekend, it certainly seems like he’d be able to handle it.