5 position battles to watch during fall camp

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The 5 position battles to watch during Auburn’s fall camp

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

8-10 minutes

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Thirty days and 25 practices stand between Auburn and its season opener against Akron — which will mark the official start of the Bryan Harsin era.

Players report for fall camp Thursday, with the first day of practices set for Friday as the 2021 approaches on the horizon. There is plenty to be settled, and plenty of questions to be answered between now and when the Tigers take the field in front of a packed Jordan-Hare Stadium on Sept. 4.

We already took a look at the five biggest questions Auburn faces entering fall camp, and now we’ll examine five of the key position battles that will need to be sorted out over the next month. While Auburn returns several starters and key contributors on both sides of the ball, there are plenty of starting roles up for grabs this fall — and while someone will have to emerge as the on-paper starter by Week 1 of the season, these battles may not be fully settled until later. Quality depth, after all, is a good problem to have.

1. The No. 2 cornerback spot

Roger McCreary returns for his senior season as Auburn’s top cornerback after a stellar junior campaign in which he had three interceptions and six pass breakups while often drawing opposing teams’ best receiver. With McCreary locked into that No. 1 spot at corner, the bigger question for Auburn is who will earn the No. 2 job—because the Tigers have a few high-quality options entering the season.

Jaylin Simpson earned the starting role last fall after edging out Nehemiah Pritchett in preseason camp, but he sustained an injury in the season opener against Kentucky that hindered his success last season. He finished 2020 with 14 tackles and three pass breakups in eight games, but he had a strong spring to reinsert himself into the conversation for the starting role. Pritchett, meanwhile, started every game but the opener after Simpson sustained his injury. The 6-foot-1, 179-pounder had a breakthrough season, leading the team with 10 pass breakups and adding an interception to go along with 25 tackles in 11 games. According to Pro Football Focus analysis, Pritchett allowed one or fewer receptions in eight of those games while holding opposing receivers to just a 36.8 percent catch rate.

Then there’s West Virginia transfer Dreshun Miller, who arrives at Auburn after helping anchor the nation’s top-ranked passing defense a year ago. Miller led the Mountaineers with eight pass breakups as well as an interception while finishing with the fifth-best forced incompletion rate (24.4 percent) among Power 5 defensive backs, according to PFF.

2. Nickelback:

The next position battle on this list ties in closely to the previous one, as Auburn looks to replace Christian Tutt in the slot this season. Depending on how the above competition shakes out, Pritchett could be a prime candidate to slide inside and take over the starting job at nickel for Auburn, but he’s hardly the team’s only option.

Ladarius Tennison looked like he was going to be the natural choice to succeed Tutt at nickel after starting a pair of games there last season, but a lack of depth at safety this spring triggered a move to the back end of the defense for the sophomore. He exited spring atop the depth chart in that new role, but with some new arrivals at safety this summer thanks to the transfer portal, Tennison will likely see a move back to nickel, where he could vie for the starting role there.

Also keep an eye on Zion Puckett, who had 15 tackles and a pass breakup as a reserve at the position last season, and junior college transfer Bydarrius Knighten, who established himself as one of top defenders at the FCS level over the last several seasons. Knighten, like Puckett, can play either safety or nickel, so it will be interesting to see where both ultimately line up this fall.

3. The No. 2 safety spot

Again, this one kind of ties in to the above position battle, as Auburn looks to find the best fit at safety alongside returning starter Smoke Monday following the departures of Jamien Sherwood and Jordyn Peters for the NFL.

As previously mentioned, Tennison got most of the first-team reps at this position in the spring, but a move back to nickel makes the most sense for him in the long term. Puckett was limited in the spring due to injury, but he also saw time in the rotation at safety, so he should be a candidate for the starting role now that he’s back to full strength. The biggest name to watch here, however, is incoming Vanderbilt transfer Donovan Kaufman, who appeared in just two games last season as a true freshman but established himself as the Commodores’ most promising young defender and already has experience in Derek Mason’s system. Knighten, the former FCS All-American, also makes sense here given his experience, with six career interceptions, 18 pass breakups and 245 tackles during his time at SEMO, where he was a three-year starter.

4. Left tackle

Auburn’s offensive line lineup, like its secondary, could have a domino effect this fall. With eight returning players with starting experience last season, there’s bound to be some movement in fall camp as offensive line coach Will Friend tries to sort out the best five-man group.

While plenty can change up front from left to right, we’ll focus on one specific position battle to watch here — the one at left tackle. Both Austin Troxell and Alec Jackson return this fall after splitting the load on the left side last season. Jackson started the first seven games of the season at left tackle before Troxell moved into the lineup for the final three regular-season games, and then Jackson returned to that spot for the Citrus Bowl as Troxell flipped over to the right side in Brodarious Hamm’s absence against Northwestern.

When spring started, it was Jackson again receiving most of the first-team reps, but Troxell took over during the second half of practices and maintained that role through A-Day, when Jackson was absent from the Tigers’ annual spring game. The battle between the two redshirt seniors should continue into fall camp, but don’t discount former junior college transfer Kilian Zierer at that position. The 6-foot-7, 298-pounder didn’t see the field during his first season on the Plains, as he spent the spring recovering from an ACL injury he sustained in JUCO and didn’t have the benefit of a normal offseason thanks to the impact of the COVID pandemic. But after receiving second-team reps in the spring and experiencing a full, almost normal offseason in the weight room, he could factor into the discussion at left tackle.

5. Right guard

I was tempted to put down wide receiver here, given how little production Auburn returns to its receiving corps this season, but that was pretty well addressed in the five biggest questions Auburn faces this season, with several candidates who could potentially emerge as the Tigers’ top threat in the passing game. So, instead, let’s keep the focus on the offensive line.

Specifically, let’s look at the right guard spot.

Brandon Council opened the 2020 season as Auburn’s starter at right guard, and he got the nod there in four of the Tigers’ first five games (with a start at right tackle in the other game during that stretch) before his season came to an abrupt end thanks to a torn ACL. In stepped Keiondre Jones, who started the other seven games at right guard and proved to be a strong run-blocker for the Tigers’ ground game.

But Council was arguably Auburn’s most consistent lineman when he was healthy last season, and now he’s back in the fold after recovering from that ACL injury and a shoulder issue that sidelined him during the spring. How long it takes him to round back into form remains to be seen, and while Jones showed a lot of promise as a redshirt freshman last season, it’s hard to see Council not being a factor in the lineup if he’s 100 percent healthy. Given Council’s versatility, with the ability to play all five spots along the line, it’s entirely possible he slots in elsewhere up front if Jones continues his strong development at right guard.

[AuburnNTexas 7,317]

I think Jones keeps Right Guard and that you can see Council competing for RT, C, LT position. Cornerback, Nickel, and Safety I am not to worried about other than depth but with what we brought in on transfer portal I think depth will be solid this year also. LT and Center are the positions I worry the most about as last year we had a number of breakdowns there. Jackson has the tools to be a left tackle but is decision making was off some last year. Brahms is the most experienced player on the O-line but at time was physically overmatched and other times did not appear to block his gap and players came right in up the middle. I say appears as without knowing what his assignment was it could have been the guards fault.

If strength and conditioning was as good as all the talk about it, then O-Line play will be better simply because players are bigger and stronger. The O-line is the key to any teams offensive success or failure.