Who turned heads the most during the first week of Auburn's fall camp?
Who turned heads the most during the first week of Auburn's fall camp?
Here are 10 Tigers who are standing out right now, including a couple of flashy freshmen and some huge second-year surges.
WR Jay Fair (all photos courtesy of Austin Perryman/Auburn Athletics)
Auburn football is fully back into the swing of things on the practice field, having just wrapped up its first week of fall camp on Tuesday morning.
The Tigers are off Wednesday, and they’ll practice on Thursday and Friday before heading to Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday for an all-important first scrimmage. When Auburn gets done there, it’ll only be three weeks away from the season opener.
We’ve gotten viewing windows to three of Auburn’s first five practices of fall camp and talked to eight players, both coordinators and head coach Hugh Freeze on the record. That’s a lot to take in, especially for a team that is trying to figure things out on a new-look roster in a short amount of time.
As we look ahead to Week 2 of fall camp, it’s time to go back and break down the players who were in our notes and quotes the most from Week 1.
Some of these players are projected starters or key contributors who took their games to the next level at the start of practices, while others are true surprises who might be making some strong moves up the depth chart.
All 10 of these players saw their stocks rise over the first week — and they should be ones to watch when things ratchet up even further around that first big scrimmage.
LB Eugene Asante
After spending his first three seasons as a rotational linebacker at North Carolina, Asante transferred to Auburn in 2022. He only played five defensive snaps in the opener before being limited to special teams work over the next three weeks. Injuries kept him from seeing the field the rest of the season.
It could have been easy to overlook Asante heading into 2023, especially with a new coaching staff that didn’t bring him to the Plains. But the former 4-star linebacker has stood out in a linebacker room looking for real separation, even getting some first-team reps in viewing windows.
“I think Eugene has made some huge strides in the things we’re talking about (at practice),” defensive coordinator Ron Roberts said. “He’s a physical talent, runs well, plays hard, plays with excitement, emotions. He’s all that kind of stuff that you’re looking for. Early in the summer, I thought he did a good job of understanding the defense more, and that’s put him in a spot … to go compete for a starting job.”
Fellow linebacker Wesley Steiner described Asante as “fast and emphatic” on the field, and you can see the energy radiating off of him in practices. At 6-foot-1 and 222 pounds, he has good size for an athletic linebacker and is about to enter his fifth season of college football. This position battle is far from over, but Asante is a name Auburn fans need to become more familiar with between now and the opener.
