What all we saw and heard during the fourth practice of Auburn football fall camp
Most of the time at practice Tuesday morning was spent observing Auburn's quarterbacks, but there was also a lot of buzz about a certain defensive transfer.
(Todd Van Emst/Auburn Athletics)
It’s extremely important to remember that what media members get to see in the half-hour viewing windows of Auburn football practice is just a chunk of what goes on. A lot more happens behind closed doors. So whenever you read our practice observations, keep in mind that it’s just a snapshot of the action.
Here’s a prime example of that: On Tuesday morning, during two periods of work with the wide receivers, T.J. Finley was clearly the most accurate quarterback of the scholarship guys. He wasn’t perfect, but he clearly had the least amount of off-target throws.
Meanwhile, Zach Calzada and Robby Ashford each had significant stretches of misfired balls, including a stretch where Auburn pushed the ball down the field with deep post routes.
But keep in mind, during the first two practice viewing windows, Calzada looked the best throwing the ball. Ashford was the offensive player of the day during Sunday’s practice, which a number of Auburn fans were excited to see on social media.
And, right after Tuesday’s practice, Harsin talked about the improved consistency of his quarterbacks.
“There’s really no days off for those quarterbacks, and I think today was one of our more consistent days from the QBs,” Harsin said. “Still not what it needs to be, but was still more consistent than what it’s been from all those guys.”
What does it all mean? This is still very much a competition, and college football players are going to have their good moments and not-so-good moments, especially this early in preseason practices.
“Again, it’s camp,” Harsin said. “So you’re seeing a lot of different looks from the defense, and I think all the quarterbacks have had their moments — really good, and some where we’ve got to learn from it.”
Here’s all of what we saw and heard from the fourth practice of Auburn football camp, from the action during the open viewing window to the takeaways from interviews with Harsin, tight end Luke Deal and defensive back Donovan Kaufman.
TE Tyler Fromm (Todd Van Emst/Auburn Athletics)
Here are a lot of words on Auburn’s passing game
Like the first two open windows of fall camp, the media’s viewing time started with the end of an 11-on-11 pace drill. With the veterans and rookies now combined in practices, there was a lot more rotation among the second- and third-team units, which media members got to see before things broke up for the individual position drill periods. (The highlight of this pace period: Calzada hitting Ja’Varrius Johnson for a huge gain.)
There’s a lot going on during “indy,” with position groups scattered all over the field. For this viewing window, I stayed with the quarterbacks the entire time and tried to write down as much as I could — because they ended up working with the running backs, tight ends and wide receivers for the rest of the window.
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