Format for A-Day

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Format for Auburn A-Day to be similar to years past under Gus Malzahn

James Crepea | jcrepea@al.com

Expect Auburn's A-Day game to have a similar structure to those of the past four years under coach Gus Malzahn.

The Tigers' starting offense and defense will be matched up again the backups, with a select group of players seeing action for both teams and the second half should devolve into third-teamers and walk-ons playing out a running clock, based on what Malzahn said the plan will be for his fifth spring game as head coach on the Plains.

"The good thing is, I feel like we have more depth now," Malzahn said. "So the (second-teamers), it could be a little more competitive than it has been in the past, which is always good.

"The challenge we have this year is we have a quite a few that we feel like are (starters), even though you have two, I know in one case three, at one position. So I look for it to be a real competitive game, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of our guys out there competing in front of a crowd like we do every year."

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The three healthy scholarship quarterbacks are not expected to take any live reps and there is not an exact split of reps in place, but naturally all eyes will be on Jarrett Stidham and all he does in his public debut for the Tigers.

The major storyline of the day will be how Stidham looks throwing and how dynamic the aerial attack looks compared to last season.

Malzahn made it a point to throw the ball a lot on A-Day in 2014 when Nick Marshall returned, but he didn't want to commit to such a plan after last week's second spring scrimmage.

Offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey said the passing game will be on display and is intent on letting Stidham see a significant amount of action.

"We're going to throw the ball, for sure," Lindsey said. "I don't know relative to how many times and all that. ... We're just going to try to run our base offense and hopefully get a few balls down the field. We definitely want to do that; but at the same time, I'm interested in our quarterbacks just executing. If they'll do that and their eyes are in the right place and their fundamentals are good, and hopefully we'll throw it and catch it, but at the end of the day I just want to make sure that they're dialed in and they're where they're supposed to be."

Malzahn admitted he's "more guarded than most" when it comes to what his team puts on tape for other coaches to watch during the off-season, so don't expect anything too exotic or out of the ordinary by way of play calling.

 

DB Michael Sherwood could have another productive A-Day

With Auburn's depth at safety stretched thin, Michael "Dirty Mike" Sherwood should see plenty of time with the second-team defense on A-Day

 

The typical constraints on play calling and blitzing will be in place so defensive coordinator Kevin Steele is focused mainly on execution.

Steele said the things he's looking for are "effort, physicality, good tackling," because being "results-oriented" for a spring game can be a trivial exercise due to personnel mismatches.

"The biggest thing is whoever is out there, whatever we're playing, how limited we are in the calls," Steele said, "is that we play with great effort, we're physical and we tackle."