receivers 'lightyears' ahead of where they were in spring

[aubiefifty 18,231]

Auburn wide receivers 'lightyears' ahead of where they were in spring

By Tom Green | tgreen@al.com

6-7 minutes

---

Auburn wide receiver Elijah Canion (17) runs after a catch during fall practice on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021 in Auburn, Ala. Todd Van Emst/AU AthleticsTodd Van Emst/AU Athletics

Auburn entered the offseason with a considerably different-looking and relatively inexperienced group at wide receiver, but the unit has come a long way in a short time.

The Tigers had to navigate the loss of their top-three receivers from a year ago, as Seth Williams, Anthony Schwartz and Eli Stove jumped to the NFL, leaving Auburn with less than 30 percent of its receiving production from a year ago and in need of players to step up at the position. After a spring focused on installing and learning a new offense, first-year offensive coordinator Mike Bobo is feeling better about the group one week into fall camp.

“We’re lightyears ahead of where we were when we finished spring,” Bobo said. “That’s a credit to those guys.”

Auburn’s receiving corps does not feature a player who had double-digit receptions last season — with Ze’Vian Capers and Kobe Hudson each hauling in seven a year ago — while the most experienced member of the group, Georgia grad transfer Demetris Robertson, just arrived on campus Sunday and is working to quickly familiarize himself with Auburn’s offense. Robertson brings some needed experience to the room, but it was the group’s lack of that in the spring — when Capers was sidelined with a foot injury and senior Shedrick Jackson was limited as well — that contributed to Bobo saying the receivers “weren’t where we needed to be” after A-Day.

The inexperienced corps juggled a lot over the course of spring practices while trying to learn the ins and outs of Bobo’s wide-open, pro-style offense, which is considerably different from the Hurry Up, No Huddle attack former coach Gus Malzahn ran during his time at Auburn, with different concepts and route combinations specifically at receiver. As a result, much of the spring was spent learning the new terminology, understanding the new formations and splits at receiver and a lot of thinking overall, which Bobo believes prevented many of the receivers from feeling at ease and truly comfortable on the field.

“They weren’t being able to perform at probably their God-given ability because of how much thinking they were doing and a lot of still learning how to play receiver,” Bobo said.

Following an offseason of player-run practices and limited meetings and film sessions with the coaching staff, Bobo has seen noticeable improvement from the wide receivers this fall. They have appeared more comfortable in practices, with parts of the offense and intricacies of the position coming as second nature to them.

They’re still not quite where they need to be, though, with a little more than three weeks to go until the season opener against Akron on Sept. 4. As is the case with most position groups this time of year, the receivers aren’t a finished product — but they’re making progress, and Bobo told them as much during meetings earlier this week.

“They’ve adapted well,” quarterback Bo Nix said. “They’ve taken the challenge. They met the expectations and they’re doing all they can. They’re giving great effort. That’s what I love about this group. They all understand that it’s a wide-open competition at this point. Therefore, they’re giving maximum effort. They’re playing hard for each other. They’re concentrating. They’re learning…. This group is coming in every day, eager to learn and eager to get out there on the field and make plays.”

Some of those plays have been evident in practice during media viewing periods, when Nix and fellow quarterback T.J. Finley have put on a show during skeleton drills with the receivers. Capers, Malcolm Johnson Jr., Tar’Varish Dawson, Elijah Canion and Ja’Varrius Johnson have all made some noticeably impressive plays during those limited viewing periods.

While the progress from spring to the start of fall camp has been a good sign for Auburn’s offense, there’s still more that Bobo and head coach Bryan Harsin want to see from the receivers as the season approaches.

Most of it boils down to one word that Harsin recently harped on — consistency.

That means consistency on the field during practice. It means consistency in how they prepare off the field and in meetings. And it means consistency in how they take coaching, with Bobo noting that coaching shouldn’t be taken as criticism; it’s something that should be taken to heart in order to improve.

“That’s a position, you have to be a student of the game,” Harsin said. “So, when you watch really good wide receivers, I think one thing that stands out is they’re very consistent. They’re getting off the ball. They understand their adjustments. They get lined up properly. There’s not a lot of issues from really good wide receivers from that standpoint. I think the really, really good ones understand the game and those critical, critical moments in the game. It’s catching the ball and it’s in the two-minute drill and running it to the middle of the field. It’s getting out of bounds. It’s being able to put yourself in position based off coverage that’s going to give us an advantage because you understand and you paid attention in practice.

“…And I meant what I said, we’ve got talented players in there. We’ve got to be consistent every single day. We’ve got to do it because we want to. I think that group’s got to create that identity so they’re that type of unit and those type of players that we know we need in this offense. They’re capable of doing it so to me, that’s the key.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.