AUBURN – TJ Finley wore her mother’s homemade homecoming pants. His relatives wore his No. 1 on the back of Auburn football shirts that would have been sacrilegious a year ago.
In a gravel RV parking lot in the shade of LSU’s Tiger Stadium, a dozen of these Finleys struggled to cram into a single camera frame. They eventually ditched the selfie and went for a video. That way, they could dance, flex and show Auburn loot in a pre-game text to Finley, who was preparing to take on his old team.
An aunt received a text from a family friend: “I hope TJ is playing well. It’s just not a victory.
“We’ve been getting these texts all day,” said Shannon Finley, her mother. “They don’t want my baby to win.”
They didn’t bother to answer with what they already knew: Finley wouldn’t start that night. Auburn coach Bryan Harsin had decided to stick with Bo Nix the week after Finley stepped on the bench and led Auburn to a comeback victory.
The family didn’t care. They spent the night in the parking lot and still celebrated Finley’s return.
Making the familiar 45-minute drive from Finley’s hometown of Hammond, Louisiana, his mother could be proud of her contribution to Finley’s game-day outfit, even if he didn’t start. She tapered off his navy blue pants he wore at the stadium.
It is a mother-son tradition that will take on more importance now, almost two months later. Finley has a feel-good and feel-good Saturday mentality. The know-how of his mother is the key. And confidence will be key for Finley in Auburn’s last two games of the season, including the Iron Bowl, as he is suddenly thrown into the starting quarterback role after a season-ending injury to Nix.
Her journey so far has been marked by frustration, patience, vigilance and a collection of new costumes.
The model
Her legs were too long. Too skinny at the bottom. He didn’t like the look of the flared pants.
But with Finley’s fuller upper body, he had no choice but to buy bigger suits. The fit was still rough.
Mom came to the rescue.
While in high school, Shannon Finley learned to sew and type pants. From the knee down, she refined each pair of pants to her son’s taste. This continued in college. Auburn’s weekly pre-game tradition is Tiger Walk, in which players dress to impress as they walk through the Auburn campus to the Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Shannon still buys Finley’s costumes – three new this season. Her favorite was blue and gray with pinstripes.
“This is her absolute ‘I’m gorgeous’ costume,” she said. “He loves pinstripe suits.
She knows her son’s tastes and TJ trusts his. They’ve been sharing a bond since he was a baby, when she took him to pharmacy school exams while also earning his doctorate.
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Finley’s appreciation for fashion also began at a young age, when his parents entered him into a local baby modeling competition. He won.
He therefore passed the state competition. He won that too.
Finley was suddenly on the national stage for the first time, on trial against other babies for his personality, communication skills and catwalk costumes. His mother helped put them together. Her Louisiana-themed crayfish outfit was a hit.
Finley won the National Babies Championship.
“I think he won because he’s so smart because he went to pharmacy school,” Shannon said.
The award included a photo shoot. Finley’s wallet has been sent for products requiring a baby model.
“He’s always had that charisma and that model gene,” she said.
Mud
When Finley isn’t wearing trendy clothes, he’s covered in mud. Louisiana at heart, he and his family share a hobby of driving in the mud on four-wheelers. During Auburn’s week off in October, he returned home and left for a day.
“It got really muddy,” his mother said. “His escape from football is mud.”
Finley needed an escape that week. After his heroic moment against Georgia State, her routine had changed. The first few weeks of the season, Finley never worked with first-team receivers in training. But even after Nix reclaimed the starting job at LSU, Harsin and offensive coordinator Mike Bobo decided to put Finley in the first team rotation during practice, just in case.
It made Finley realize that being a backup quarterback is more difficult than being a starter. He began to study the playbook more intensely. He was more alert. It was just as exhausting as getting started but less rewarding. It was his own job in the mud.
“It really taught her a lot about endurance and patience,” her mother said. “There are a lot of emotions that go with it. He would be so excited because you train like you’re the starter and then the game comes on and you don’t hit the pitch at all.
The final costume
Just as Finley had embraced the role, Nix suffered an injury last week in Auburn’s loss to Mississippi State. X-rays showed a broken ankle. He underwent end-of-season surgery on Monday.
When Auburn starts in South Carolina at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, Finley will face the same opponent from his college debut, as he led LSU on 17 of 21 assists. Next is the Iron Bowl. Finley was 14 for 28 in LSU’s loss to Alabama last year.
When Finley was in the transfer portal, he was on vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. When Auburn running back Tank Bigsby reached out. Bigsby was working in town and invited Finley to his Airbnb. They called Bobo, who invited Finley to compete with Nix. Alabama coach Nick Saban had recruited Finley but warned him ahead of time that he would be behind quarterback Bryce Young. Bobo promised a good shot.
Now Finley is expected to start out of necessity against Saban’s Crimson Tide next week. It’s a historic rivalry and it will be Finley’s first home start at Auburn.
He calls out a new costume.
“Last week in Auburn I went shopping and bought her a turtleneck to wear underneath,” said Shannon Finley. “I haven’t got my hands on the suit yet, but I’m sure it will have stripes.”
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