Mailbag 184: Should Auburn build for the future in the second half?
This week: The QB situation, run/pass ratios, the NFL Draft, Tank Bigsby, basketball rotations, Miles Kelly, expectations and beach food
WR Cam Coleman (Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
Even thought it’s an off week, the Friday mailbag doesn’t take a break. There’s just too much to talk about with Auburn football and Auburn basketball right now.
We’ve got a lot to get to today, so I’ll make this one of my traditional short introductions.
This week, you asked about Hugh Freeze and his program looking toward the future, fixing the offense and producing NFL talent. You also asked about Auburn basketball’s lineups and what the Tigers might be getting in their newcomers.
Thank you, as always, for continuing to read and subscribe to the Auburn Observer. We’ll hit the second half of football season hard next week and continue to build up to what should be an exciting basketball season on the Plains. (Our premium, all-basketball podcast for this week was emailed to all paying subscribers earlier today.)
Let’s go.
With a 2-4 start to the season, are there any other young players that you could see getting more playing time?
It seems like building for the future is the way to go. I don’t see a 4-2 ending to this season after such a disastrous start.
Bandit
At the halfway point of the regular season, Auburn finds itself in a tough situation. A 4-2 record would have been a reasonable expectation for the first half of the campaign. Instead, the Tigers are 2-4, having lost three winnable games at home.
Auburn needs to flip that record around in order to make a bowl game this season. That would give the Tigers a shot to end the streak of losing campaigns and show — even after the disastrous start to the season — some on-field progress.
In several ways, Auburn has been playing better football in 2024 than it has in 2023. Unfortunately, that improvement has been hollow, because it hasn’t translated to victories. Too many turnovers and stalled-out drives on offense, along with self-inflicted wounds on defense, have turned winnable games into frustrating losses.
The stats and the schedule both seem to suggest that Auburn doesn’t need to pull the plug on 2024 and start going all-in on the future. The Tigers will have to play well to beat either Missouri or Kentucky on the road, but there isn’t some talent gap like you saw in the Georgia trip.
Auburn should have a shot to win, considering Missouri got pounded by Texas A&M and Kentucky got pounded by South Carolina. Neither of those teams are juggernauts right now. Vanderbilt beat Alabama at home but also lost to Georgia State on the road. Every week takes on a life of its own. Auburn needs to go prove that.
But let’s go back to the original question: Should Auburn lean into playing the kids more in the second half of the season? It’s a good question, especially for a program that has been so adamant from the top-down that this is a recruiting-based rebuild.
According to Pro Football Focus, Auburn’s top four offensive skill players in snaps this season are all seniors: KeAndre Lambert-Smith, Payton Thorne, Rivaldo Fairweather and Jarquez Hunter. But 12 of the next 16 — everybody that has played double-digit snaps this season — are all players with eligibility remaining. Seven of those 12 are from either the 2023 or 2024 recruiting classes.
On the offensive line, the majority of the snaps have gone to upperclassmen. But Connor Lew, who is No. 2 in snaps up front, has eligibility remaining. Bradyn Joiner, who has had to fill in due to injuries in the last three games, is at No. 6. Then there’s a drop-off to younger linemen who have only played sporadically: Tyler Johnson, DeAndre Carter, E.J. Harris and Dylan Senda.
Defensively, nine players have played 200-plus snaps. Three of them are underclassmen: Keldric Faulk (No. 3), Kayin Lee (No. 4) and Kaleb Harris (No. 7). Eleven more players have played 100-plus snaps, with four of them being youngsters — Antonio Kite (who hasn’t played in the last two games), Sylvester Smith (No. 13), Jay Crawford (No. 16) and Malik Blocton (No. 17).
There are several players in that top 20 with eligibility remaining, like Keyron Crawford, Bobby Jamison-Travis and the injured Champ Anthony. Finally, an additional 12 players have hit double-digit snaps, with six of them being youngsters: Demarcus Riddick, Amaris Williams, Kensley Louidor-Faustin, JC Hart, Terrance Love and T.J. Lindsey.
Auburn is clearly playing the kids right now, but it’s not going to take the veterans out of the equation in order to do that. Again, the Tigers just need to win games. If there’s still a chance to make a bowl game, there’s no need to punt on the older guys who have given so much to the program and are among the top options on the team.
But if the young players have proven they can hold their own, they could definitely be worked into the rotations more. Starting with the defense, let’s take a quick position-by-position rundown of where each position group stands at the halfway point of the season and if the Tigers could benefit from going with more kids: