5 wild cards on defense

[aubiefifty 17,487]

247sports.com

 

Auburn preseason preview: 5 wild cards on defense

Nathan King

10-13 minutes

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Late Kick: Auburn is a sleeper team heading into 2022 season

 

It’s finally time for football again on the Plains.

Auburn opens Year 2 of preseason practices under Bryan Harsin on Friday, with players reporting to campus for meetings with their coaches the day prior. The Tigers will have had nearly two weeks of break time before they report to the facility for evaluations, then begin preparations in earnest for Auburn’s season opener against Mercer on Sept. 3.

It’s been a long, sometimes tedious offseason, with the same external narratives repeating themselves about Harsin’s program. But within those walls, players and coaches alike have been highly optimistic about the summer work being done in Jeff Pitman’s strength program, and in player-only practice sessions.

“They’ve done a good job of doing everything we’ve asked them to do,” Harsin said at SEC media days. “From the workouts with Coach Pitman and his staff, they’ve done a great job there. I would say this team, they enjoy the weight room, they enjoy the work and the running. They wouldn’t say that, but I think they really do so they enjoy the conditioning piece.

“As far as the football piece goes, there’s just a lot more focus on actually preparing themselves to be ready to go in fall camp.”

Harsin is also pleased by the health of his team, which was a shell of itself in the spring due to injuries to several starters, but now enters preseason practices with no significant injuries to speak of.

Auburn Undercover will spend the days leading up to camp looking deeper at the Tigers and hovering a microscope over the program’s summer workouts, newcomers, position battles, general players to watch and more.

Up next: Auburn's star players can easily be identified, but who are the Tigers whose 2022 seasons could go in a variety of ways? Here are five defensive wild-card candidates for preseason camp — whose 2022 impacts on the team can be best defined as unpredictable.

DT JAYSON JONES

Jones was Auburn's starting nose tackle for the majority of the spring, so it's not as if he isn't off to an accomplished start with his new program. But there's not an overwhelming amount of production on tape from his two seasons at Oregon.

He'll be taking over, in all likelihood, for Tony Fair, a UAB transfer who played one season with the Tigers, without making much of a notable impact (nine tackles and one sack). Of course, stats aren't the main storytellers for an interior defensive player, but Jones seems to possess a higher ceiling in terms of frame and athleticism to be a difference-maker up front.

Formerly a four-star recruit from Calera, Alabama, Jones now stands at a monstrous 6-foot-6 and 328 pounds — one of the largest players to come through Auburn, on either side of the ball, in some time. He moved impressively in the spring and looks to be well positioned to start quickly in the fall.

"When I first heard I was like, ‘Oh my God, look who we got,'" defensive lineman Marcus Harris said of Jones in the spring. "I was happy for him. Him being from Alabama too, I kinda of heard about him coming out of high school. I heard about the type of player he was. When I heard he was coming, I couldn’t wait go get him and have some more help on this D-line so we can be the best that we can be."

DL JEFFREY M'BA

Also an athletic freak along the defensive line, M'ba was the No. 1 JUCO defensive tackle recruit in the 2021 class. He was tight knit with former D-line coach Nick Eason, but stuck around with the Tigers after Eason left for the same job at Clemson.

Recovering from a shoulder injury, M'ba was a non-participant for the entirety of spring practice — so he's yet to see the field in orange and blue. According to Harsin, his off-the-field commitment to learning the scheme and assisting his teammates was impressive for a newcomer.

"He's an awesome person — very good player, very athletic," Harsin said in May. "I think there's so much more potential that he's got. He's got so many capabilities that we just didn't get a chance to see this spring. He wants to be out there."

At 6-foot-6 and 305 pounds — and with shockingly quick get-off, at least on his JUCO tape — M'ba can play anywhere along Auburn's defensive line, with the exception of edge rusher.

There are fairly significant factors working against him, of course — a first-year player coming off an injury isn't exactly an optimal transition — so it's possible that his biggest impacts for Auburn's defense are still a year or so away. But if everything clicks immediately, there aren't many more physically imposing players on Auburn's campus.

LB CAM RILEY

Auburn fans are still waiting to see what kind of player Riley, a junior, can make in Auburn's defense, after he's worked beneath highly productive linebackers his first two seasons.

His stature has always been intriguing, especially considering the fact that his continued growth has been noticeable since arriving on campus. He was 6-foot-3 and 207 pounds after his senior year at Hillcrest High School (Evergreen, Ala.), and is now heading into 2022 at 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds. Auburn's staff toyed with the idea of moving him to edge rusher, where his lanky frame could help shore up depth issues, but it seems he'll remain in Christian Robinson's linebacker room.

In the spring, Riley and Wesley Steiner occupied most of Auburn's first-team reps at linebacker, since Owen Pappoe was out with injury. Riley and Steiner are starkly different players in terms of skill set, but regardless of who Auburn pairs with Pappoe as a "starter," both will be in the main rotation in 2022.

For Riley, could that mean a breakout campaign? He's been a consistent player in the weight room and in practice since his freshman year, and his team has been high on his potential. That potential will now likely meeting opportunity.

"A lot of time with our guys you talk about trends — one good day doesn't mean it's been two weeks," defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding said in the spring. "What are they doing consistently? And Cam has done that. He didn't play probably as much as he wanted to on the defensive side of the ball, however, going into that season, the big thing was gaining weight, gaining experience and getting used to playing in the box, too. That's another thing — some of the guys we recruit, they're good athletes and as they get to specific positions — it may not be exactly what they did. Just because that tag said linebacker doesn't mean you played in the box — and there is a different world five yards off the ball, reading and guarding the back, then it is off the edge and attacking the quarterback.

"But he's a versatile player, and I think the biggest thing that he gained last year was, No. 1, the experience, and then took that and there was a hunger after the season, I'll say that. He wanted to be more active in this defense and play significant minutes, and it showed up. Sometimes people say they want it but their actions don't always back it up — you see the weight he's gained. Really impressed."

CB D.J. JAMES

Playing cornerback at Auburn has become an attractive job in recent seasons. And James, another Oregon transfer, decided this offseason that he wanted in on the Tigers’ success at the position.

The Spanish Fort, Alabama, native brings more veteran experience to an already talented room this spring, having started all 12 games he played in with the Ducks last season. He was the team’s highest-graded defensive back (71.6) in 2021, according to Pro Football Focus.

So at most other programs, James would be sliding easily into a starting role. But Auburn's top cornerback spots are occupied with two highly capable veterans: Jaylin Simpson and Nehemiah Pritchett, both of whom are looking to become the Tigers' next high NFL draft pick at the position, after All-American Roger McCreary was taken in the early second round.

But Auburn has gotten plenty of production out of its No. 3 cornerback spot in the past. The question is whether James can lock it down.

Much like former All-Big 12 West Virginia transfer Dreshun Miller last year, James transferred to Auburn with designs on being the next big-time cornerback to parlay lockdown coverage elsewhere in the Power Five into standout play in the SEC. Auburn hopes James, who also worked at nickel in the spring, is a more impactful addition, seeing as Miller barely saw the field and transferred after the season.

“You always want to give yourself a chance to bring him in and create competition and go fight for a starting job,” secondary coach Zac Etheridge said in the spring. “(James) is doing that every day to go fight for that job, and go push guys like Nehemiah, and push guys like Simp, who’s played a lot of ball here. He’s coming here to take a job, and that’s what you want him to do.”

S CALEB WOODEN

The younger brother of starting defensive lineman Colby Wooden, the three-star true freshman Wooden was not only the top newcomer in spring practices; he was one of the most productive players on the entire roster over the course of a month.

Wooden was afforded first-team reps at safety because of Zion Puckett's recovery from shoulder surgery. And he shined on a consistent basis, starting with a scoop-and-score and an interception on the very first day of practice. Wooden later had an interception in the end zone against the first-team offense — out-positioning third-year receiver Malcolm Johnson Jr. — to end a scrimmage.

"By him having his brother here to teach him, he knows what it takes," junior defensive back Donovan Kaufman said in the spring. "I really think he’s going to have a great career here.

Wooden seems to have made a resounding case for himself as a starting-caliber player in the secondary this season as only a freshman, but the Tigers did go peruse the transfer portal in the summer and add Iowa State transfer Craig McDonald (17 career games), who could be a more likely pick to start alongside Puckett.

But with two high-volume players on the back end gone from last season — Smoke Monday and Bydarrius Knighten — there will be snaps still up for grabs in preseason camp. Was Wooden's standout spring the result of diminished personnel, or will he pick up where he left off?

"He wants to be really, really good," Schmedding said. "Just like any young player, he doesn't know what he doesn't know. But he is actively trying to learn everything he possibly can. He brings juice to whatever he does. He's been enjoyable so far. I think he's got a really big upside."

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1COMMENTS

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[maryland tiger 616]

I am really excited about the D-line for this year's team. I believe we will be better than last year, which was pretty good. I also believe we have enough diversity to provide help on the edge if and when needed. 

[oracle79 3,569]

 

I am really excited about the D-line for this year's team.

Just a guess, but I expect us to rotate more bodies and hopefully be fresher in the 4th quarter to put teams away and finish games.