Observations: Day 8 of Auburn Football Fall Camp
With a huge first scrimmage coming up Friday, the Tigers moved indoors Thursday — but still put a spotlight on the big fellas on both sides of the ball.
AUBURN — Alex Golesh wanted Auburn to get thrown into adversity this fall camp.
It’s been a week and some change of early wakeup calls at the team hotel, shuttle bus rides back and forth, hard-hitting practices and — of course — some brutal heat.
“It’s been tough,” nose tackle Dallas Walker IV said. “It’s been fun. I have enjoyed coming out here with everybody working hard and enjoying the grind of camp. Just being connected and going to the hotel and staying with each other has been good.
“I feel like it has been a change for the better.”
There’s a limit, though, to just how much you can get put through in the preseason. So, with Auburn looking ahead to its first scrimmage of the fall on Friday morning, Golesh and his staff put the Tigers on the indoor field Thursday morning for practice.
The intensity that has defined this camp was still running high, even if the sun wasn’t directly beating down on everybody — except for the specialists that needed the extra room to kick.
“That's one thing about our practices,” offensive guard Deryc Plazz said. “The energy has been amazing.”
Media members were allowed to watch the first half-hour of practice Thursday, which marked the eighth session of fall camp. That was followed after practice by interviews with the big fellas — offensive linemen and defensive tackles were the main focus, along with their position coaches.
We’ll talk to Golesh after Friday’s scrimmage inside Jordan-Hare Stadium. Look for a breakdown of what we learned tomorrow afternoon. For now, here’s everything we saw and heard at the football facility Thursday.
Let’s start things off with an injury update for the team, now that we’re fully in the second week of preseason practices:
Running back Nyhaki Davenport, tight end Jonathan Echols, safety Newboy Fegans, edge rusher Nate Johnson and edge rusher Joe Phillips were all non-participants during the viewing window. None of those players have major injuries, but they’re day-to-day right now.
Safety Kaleb Harris ramped up his participation in practice and was in full pads. While he might not be 100%, this is the most we’ve seen him do in recent days.
Right tackle Stanton Ramil was dressed out but wasn’t a full participant with the rest of the line during the viewing window. That’s not a surprise: Golesh has said multiple times that they want to be careful with him in his return this camp.
Defensive tackle Malik Autry is no longer swinging the giant club on his right hand. He had it braced and taped up normally Thursday at practice. That’s a good sign for his progress, even if he looked more intimidating with the batting ram attached to his wrist.
Both safety Sylvester Smith-Reed and wide receiver Christian Neptune remained in their orange non-contact jerseys but were otherwise full participants.
Freshman defensive tackle Corey Wells is still working his way back to full speed. Golesh said he might be able to get reps toward the end of preseason camp.
While we didn’t get to see any 11-on-11 work like we did Wednesday, this practice viewing window was headlined by a three-deep look on defense in a back-and-forth pursuit drill on one half of the indoor field.
Here are how all three units lined up for the Tigers on that side of the ball: