AUBURN, Ala. -- Last week, Gus Malzahn stood in front of the media and said that he had confidence in both of his quarterbacks. And he didn’t say it just once. He used the word “confidence” eight times when referring to Jeremy Johnson and Sean White.

“I'm not for sure who will be the first guy out there, but I will tell you this -- we have (1) confidence in both of these guys,” the Auburn coach said. “Both of these guys have won SEC games on the road, and I think that says a lot. Our players and coaches have a lot of (2) confidence in both of them, also.”

“[Johnson] seized the moment on the road. I know that gives him (3) confidence moving forward.”

“I think the big thing for everyone is that we have (4) confidence in both of them and we should. So we feel very good going into this game with our quarterback situation.”

On playing both quarterbacks: “I’m not ready to say that yet. That is a possibility. I think the big thing is that we have (5) confidence in both of them, and I think that’s a good thing.”

“[Johnson] does has his edge back. He does have his (6) confidence back, and we have (7) confidence in him. We’ve got (8) confidence in Sean, too. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds right now.”

The best of both worlds?

The best of both worlds combined for 62 passing yards in Saturday’s loss to Georgia. Johnson started the game and went 14 of 22 for 61 yards and an interception. In the first half, he completed seven passes for 24 yards. How do you even do that?

White replaced Johnson in the second half, led three drives, and finished a paltry 1 of 5 with his only completion to Marcus Davis for one yard.

You know how many times Malzahn used the word “confidence” in his post-game press conference? Zero.

“We just didn’t get it done,” Malzahn said of the passing game. “I think that’s the best way to put it. We had a few opportunities and didn’t get it done. We ran the football well at times, and of course, that was our plan to run the football and [use] play action. But we weren’t very balanced.”

To White’s defense, he wasn’t quite 100 percent. The redshirt freshman, who replaced Johnson as the starting quarterback after Week 3, has been hobbled since he injured his knee in the four-overtime loss to Arkansas last month. He was a late scratch in last week’s win at Texas A&M.

But despite the injury, Malzahn said that the plan all along was to play both quarterbacks in Saturday’s game against Georgia.

“I was comfortable enough to go out there and play,” White said. “I wish I could have played better for my team and had more success, but it just didn't happen.”

“I knew I was coming out [of the game],” added Johnson. “There was no confusion there. We both knew we were going to play this game. We’ve just got to get better. We made some throws, and some plays we called we ran into some bad looks. We’ve just got to get better.”

Malzahn, who has already changed his starting quarterback twice this season, wouldn’t say which player would start this Saturday against Idaho. If it’s anything like the past three weeks, don’t expect a decision until about an hour before kickoff.

Not even the players know what’s going on.

Auburn running back Peyton Barber was asked how he would respond if somebody asked him who the starting quarterback was.

“I basically just say I don’t know, to be honest,” Barber said.

Maybe it's time for Malzahn to pick a guy and stick with him. If we learned anything from Saturday, it’s that playing both quarterbacks might not be the right answer.