For some time, it seemed that Anthony Schwartz would choose to go after a track career and drop football to completely focus on that. Now, it is the complete opposite.
On Friday, the Auburn wide receiver said that after his track season got cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it sort of put a kink in his plans and that playing for the Tigers on the gridiron is now his focus.
“When everything got canceled, that kind of just put my mind towards football, trying to improve on football,” Schwartz said. “Being able to hone in on my craft, I feel like football is the way for me. I feel like football is the way for me and I feel like I’m locked in 100% for football for the future.”
There’s good reason why Schwartz would have been okay picking to go the track route. He was part of the gold medal-winning USA team in the 4×100 meter relay at the World U20 Championships in 2018 and earned the silver in the 100 meter.
Yet his speed is even more apparent on the football field where he can continually outrace defensive backs for long touchdowns. Against Texas A&M last season, he took a reverse toss and hit a hole that … well … didn’t look like it was smart to hit and then he was gone.
He finished the season with 41 catches for 440 yards and a touchdown while rushing for two more scores. In Chad Morris’ offenses in 2020, Schwartz feels as if he will be even more productive, spending the time learning the new playbook and working with his quarterback.
“I feel like we’re a completely different offense. I can’t go into detail, but just know it’s not the normal Auburn offense. It’s going to be something completely different.
“Really in the offseason, I worked on becoming a complete receiver — able to run every route in the route tree, being able to catch the ball,” Schwartz said. “That’s most of the stuff that I worked on. Then, over the summer, just trying to get back into it with Bo, getting back into the playbook, getting back into the whole offense in shape and just getting ready to have a big season this year.”