Injuries not a major problem

[aubiefifty 18,231]

AUBURN, Alabama–With just over a week remaining until his football team takes the field to open the 2020 season vs. the Kentucky Wildcats, Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn said on Friday he is hopeful the Tigers will be in good shape on the injury front for game one.

“We have been very fortunate, I think, just as far as any major injuries (are concerned),” he said on Friday. “We put the ball down and we played old school football a lot. We have been pretty fortunate as far as that goes.

“We are a little bit banged up in a few areas, but our goal has been by Tuesday of next week everybody is healthy and ready to go. Hopefully, that will happen and we do have a chance for that to happen so we will see.”

As long as there are no more issues with covid-19 test positives before the Tigers play the Wildcats, the Tigers will arrive at game one with all of their key performers ready to play. Malzahn said there have been no season-ending injuries despite the most scrimmaging the Tigers have done in the preseason since he took over as head coach of the team in 2013. The coach noted the extra scrimmages were necessary to prepare after having all 15 of the team’s spring practice dates cancelled.

The Auburn vs. Kentucky matchup is one of seven SEC contests set for the league-wide opening day on Saturday, Sept. 26th. Kickoff for the Tigers vs. Wildcats game is set for shortly after 11 a.m. CDT at Jordan-Hare Stadium, which will be limited to 20 percent capacity. Fans will be able to watch the game on the SEC Network.

Auburn's head coach noted the Tigers turned their attention to the Wildcats during this week's practices that will conclude with a session under the new lights at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday night. "We will go to the stadium and do some special situation things and it will be under the lights and we’re going to turn the crowd noise on and all that and get used to the new normal as far as that goes."

Commenting on the new LED lights, Malzahn said the players have seen them previously. "We went about a month ago. We took our players to the stadium before we kicked off fall camp, turned the jumbotron on and all that and showed them the lights. We thought it was important for them to get a chance to see exactly what the differences are so tomorrow night we’re not going to actually scrimmage, but we are going to do some good-on-good situation stuff, but we are going to turn the lights on so they’ll have a good understanding of what that will look like. It’ll be different.

"I know there’s a couple opponents on the road that have similar lighting systems so we’re going to pump in some crowd noise so that’ll be happening this year, too.," the coach added. "Our guys will understand what that will be like, how loud it will be for our defense at home and our offense on the road.”

Auburn is coming off a 9-4 season that included a 5-3 mark in SEC contests while Kentucky was 8-5 overall and 3-5 in league games. Auburn and the rest of the SEC teams are playing 10 games for the 2020 regular season with all of the games being conference matchups.

[aucanucktiger 1,889]

Glad to hear but I'll exhale when it's December. We've had so many seasons in a row with crazy significant-injury numbers, many (e.g. Caleb Kim) not broadcast until months later.