Auburn hopes to make some noise in the national title race in Bryan Harsin’s first year as head coach.
We can all dream, right?
In Gus Malzahn’s first season as the head coach of Auburn, the Tigers came 13 seconds away from winning the national title. Can Bryan Harsin repeat the same magic?
Over at BetMGM, the experts have released odds for the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship and Auburn comes in at +8000. These are the seventh-best odds for a SEC team with Alabama leading the pack at +250.
There are some surprises with Tennessee behind ahead of the Tigers at +5000 and LSU at +3500. The Volunteers finished 3-7 last season and had a major overhaul with the firing of Jeremy Pruitt due to violations.
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Emerging offensive player: Elijah Canion, sophomore wide receiver. Ja’Varrius Johnson was the talk of spring practice, but it was the 6-foot-4 Canion who shined with six catches for 51 yards and a touchdown on A-Day, building on his breakout three-catch, 80-yard, one-touchdown performance in January’s Citrus Bowl.
Emerging defensive player: Ladarius Tennison, sophomore safety. Tennison became a starter at nickelback late last season, moved to safety this spring and instantly became one of the players Auburn’s new coaching staff is the most excited about on defense. He has a great chance to start next to senior Smoke Monday.
Canion’s performance in the Citrus Bowl was certainly something that the Tigers can build on as he tries to fill the shoes of Seth Williams as Bo Nix’s go-to receiver.
Tennison is part of a loaded secondary that should be a strength of the Tigers this season. He finished last season with 21 total tackles (13 solo) and should be even more productive in 2021.
Auburn is going after one of the best of the best.
On Tuesday, five-star outside linebacker Jaiden Ausberry from University Lab High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana announced that the Tigers have offered him a scholarship.
The No. 2 outside linebacker and No. 32 overall player in the 2023 signing class per 247Sports Composite, Ausberry stands 6-foot and 195 pounds. His father, Verge Ausberry, played linebacker at LSU and currently serves as Executive Deputy AD/Executive Director of Community Relations for LSU.
Former Auburn and current Liberty quarterback Malik Willis lit up college football last season. What can he do for an encore?
“He’s one of the most humble players I’ve ever coached.”
That is the first thing Liberty co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kent Austin has to say about his star quarterback Malik Willis.
I’m visiting Austin during a recent trip to Lynchburg and want to find out more about Willis. The Flames are one of the hottest topics in college football following a 10-1 season and victory in the Cure Bowl against previously undefeated Coastal Carolina.
Most of the attention, and deservedly so, is about Willis. The Auburn transfer thrived under the guidance of Austin and head coach Hugh Freeze, throwing for 2,260 yards and 20 touchdowns to just six interceptions while using his legs for 944 yards and 14 more scores.
Arriving at Liberty, Willis never played the big-time transfer card either.
“He’s really, really endearing to his teammates,” Austin said. “And that’s not in any way a manipulative or fake way. He’s just genuinely that guy. So he pulls people in right with his endearing nature and they know what he’s going through, his teammates know that Malik’s going to play as hard as he can to help them win the football game.”
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Endearing, sure. But how would Willis’ success translate to the field once real-live competition began? Pretty darn good. It took him no time to adjust to his first starting role in three years.
The Atlanta native began the 2020 season by helping the Flames pull off an upset at Western Kentucky, throwing for 133 yards and rushing for a team-high 168 yards and three touchdowns. Questions, however, still remained how accurate of a passer he could be.
Austin has, and still is, working with his protégé on that.
“I think he has more natural talent as a passer,” Austin said. “He just needed to develop that a little bit more in particular, with respect to a couple of fundamental flaws that he had. And the thing about Malik is he’s really coachable and he really, really, really wants to be great. He’s got a strong desire for that. So we just had to work on a few things with respect to his mechanics, that at least the last part of his skill became more consistent on a step-by-step basis.”
A lot of those flaws disappeared and his arm became a bigger asset. On October 24 in a matchup against Southern Miss in Hattiesburg, Willis completed 77.4 percent of his passes for 345 yards and six touchdowns. Now, he was the complete package and, suddenly, became a dark horse Heisman Trophy candidate.
His accuracy, not the yards or touchdowns, was what impressed Austin.
“The quarterback, the number one thing you have to have as a quarterback in our opinion is, is to be a great decision maker because if you don’t throw to the right guy the probability keeps going down and with respect to poor decisions.”
Learning not to panic was also a key contribution to Willis’ development.
“Malik will need to learn how to move and get himself in a position to deliver the ball without being mechanically out of whack, if that makes sense. So know the difference between moving in the pocket and keeping his hips and transferring his weight properly and getting on top of the ball and getting rid of some of that sidearm delivery stuff that he had as opposed to committing to run and then trying to recover for a pass, that’s what he used to do.
“And so he’d get his body all out of whack, cause he was looking for escape lanes and then he’d realized, ‘Oh, wait a minute. I still got a pocket. I just needed to move.'”
Being the star of the offense at quarterback, Willis also became a leader, but not in how you would expect. Austin says Willis is not a “rah-rah guy,” but isn’t about to change how his quarterback leads on and off the field.
“He’s not going to be a quarterback that’s going to go over there and grab you and get your attention and get in your face. He leads more by example, and he’s got more of a teaching spirit to him. You’ll see him a lot after a series when we’re on the sidelines, he’s there with receivers talking through things to prepare for the next series, talking with the offense alone, with respect to protection and these types of things.
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“Because when he’s in a game, a quarterback needs to learn how to, how to remove all the distractions and focus on the very next play and be able to execute the very next play with a great decision and we can handle it. We can handle those types of things easier on the sideline then we can during play. Cause we got to focus on the next play and make sure that we stay on the field and move the sticks.”
The expectations are sky high for Willis going into his senior season. He was recently named the Dudley Award Winner which goes to the best college football player each year in the state of Virginia and, in a piece for The Athletic, Bruce Feldman expects him to be the breakout quarterback for next year’s NFL draft.
Don’t expect that hype and attention to affect Willis, though.
Former Auburn linebacker KJ Britt discussed his time on the Plains after being drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
K.J. Britt’s last season as an Auburn Tiger didn’t go exactly as planned as the linebacker missed almost the entire season after suffering a thumb injury in the second game against Georgia.
That hasn’t kept him from loving his time on the Plains as the newly drafted Tampa Bay Buccaneer took a minute to talk about his love and experience at Auburn.
Taking a look at where several mock drafts have four former Auburn Tigers slotted in the 2021 NFL draft.
The 2021 NFL draft begins on Thursday night and while no former Auburn players are set to hear their name called in first round action, it won’t be long until the former stars on the Plains find out where they will be playing their professional football.
Here’s a look at where some mock drafts have Seth Williams, Anthony Schwartz, Jamien Sherwood and K.J. Britt landing in this year’s draft.
Auburn will once again rely on quarterback Bo Nix as the Tigers look to improve in Bryan Harsin’s first year on the Plains.
Auburn has a lot of questions marks heading into the 2021 season as Bryan Harsin tries to find the magical formula in his first year in charge of the Tigers.
One of those questions is the play of quarterback Bo Nix who regressed in almost every single way last season after being named the SEC Freshman Player of the Year in 2019.
The good people over at 247Sports know how important the now-junior signal-caller is to the success of the Tigers this upcoming season, listing him as the biggest factor for Auburn this year.
QB1 needs to be a difference-maker. No doubt there are more questions than answers for how Auburn is going to look this season under first-year coach Bryan Harsin, notably at the wideout spot and certain areas defensively, but if third-starter Bo Nix doesn’t produce his best campaign at quarterback, above-average play in those other spots isn’t going to amount to much. That’s how important No. 10 is the Tigers’ success in 2021. Nix is playing for his third offensive coordinator in three seasons and has struggled to find any semblance of a rhythm. Perhaps that changes under Harsin, who will likely take a stubborn approach in the ground game with Tank Bigsby and alleviate some of the pressure off Nix from a production standpoint.
Playing behind a veteran offensive line this season, Nix looks to improve on a season in which he completed 59.9% of his pass attempts for 2,415 yards and 12 touchdowns to seven interceptions.
With no clear No. 2 at the position behind him, the offense will depend on Nix to be both productive and stay healthy.
With spring practice in the books, here is a projected look at Auburn’s offensive depth chart going into the summer.
Auburn’s first spring practice under Bryan Harsin has concluded and there are still plenty of position battles the will be waged during the summer and into the fall for the Tigers.
On offense, the backfield is set with the combination of Bo Nix and Tank Bigsby while the offensive line returns a slew of starters from last season. Who will be the guys catching the balls from Nix, though? Besides Elijah Canion, there are no sure names that dot the starting lineup right now.
Here’s a look at our projected lineup after what we saw this spring and during the annual A-Day Game last Saturday.
Vanderbilt safety transfer Donovan Kaufman has Auburn right in the hunt for his new school as he already has a relationship with Derek Mason
Derek Mason might be coaching one of his old players again.
Vanderbilt safety transfer Donovan Kaufman told 247Sports on Friday that Auburn is squarely in the hunt for him as he decides where to play football at a new school and Mason is a main reason.
“He’s a great dude,” Kaufman said. “Not just for me — ask anybody around. They’ll say they love him as a person and that he keeps it real. He’s more than just a coach. He’s a very Han ds-on coach. Very detailed. With me and him, it’s deeper than football. He wants the best for me. Whether it’s Auburn or not Auburn, he’ll support my decision regardless.”
A freshman in 2020, the New Orleans native saw time on both defense and special teams, returning five kickoffs for 137 yards and making 15 total tackles while breaking up a pass. He could see time immediately in what is already a loaded Auburn secondary.
“I’ve talked to them almost every day,” Kaufman said. “(Mason) told me I’d play opposite of Smoke Monday. He told me they’re pretty solid. But I’ve played in his defense and know what to expect, I know what I’d be getting into.”
Deciding between the Tigers, Florida State, Tennessee and Texas, Kaufman states it is about where he feels the most comfortable.
“Just the fit,” Kaufman said. “Do I fit in? Do I see myself thriving at this institution? Can I make a career here? At the end of the day, I want to go three-and-out. I want to be that guy that coach can say, ‘Go make a play.’ Call his name, send him on the blitz because they know he’s going to get it done.”
