3.6.24 Football Articles

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247sports.com

Vontrell KingWilliams the guy everyone wanted on the DL

Jason Caldwell

9–12 minutes

Auburn assistant Vontrell King-Williams was a wanted man.

AUBURN, Alabama—When Auburn defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett left to take a job in the National Football League with the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Tigers had plenty of interest from coaches from around the country, but when the dust settled coach Hugh Freeze chose to keep things in-house and promote Vontrell King-Williams to the full-time role.

Having gone through this several times before and giving several different guys an opportunity for a shot on a bigger level, Freeze said it was time to do that again with King-Williams.

“Defensively, hated to lose J.G., truthfully,” Freeze said of the loss of Garrett. “You know, kind of raised him and he played for me and to see his growth. But I totally understand it, but then really excited to give Vontrell a shot. 

“He falls in the mold of the other guys that I’ve hired through the years from Chris Kiffin to Trey Scott to Freddie Roach to J.G. and they’ve all done really, really well. And I expect Vontrell to do the same. So excited about his energy that he brings. And he’s who the kids really wanted, too, so it’s good that we were kind of in alignment there.”

One of the most experienced players up front for the Tigers, big Jayson Jones said there was no doubt in his mind who Auburn needed to hire for the permanent job after getting to work with coach Vontrell last season.

“Everyone knows him,” Jones said. “I know him and I love him. You can go ask anybody, even outside of the position, everybody loves Vontrell and the energy he brings. Everyone wanted him and I wanted him. I expressed that. We’ve got him now, and I’m excited to be coached by him.”

That energy is something that Jones believes is going to be beneficial for the Tigers as they continue through the spring and summer and into the 2024 season. Playing in a physical league like the Southeastern Conference means dealing with a whole lot as an interior defensive lineman. Jones said having someone like King-Williams pushing you each and every day is going to be a big deal for the Tigers.

“Think about it, you’re getting double-teamed almost every single down,” Jones said. “If you don’t have somebody behind you with that energy, sometimes you can lose sight. No one is perfect and you may have a bad day, but if you have that person that supports you and brings that energy to the table, it makes you want to play a little bit harder.”

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auburnwire.usatoday.com

 

Spring breakdown: Experience is key in Auburn's tight end room

Taylor Jones

3–4 minutes

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It is strange to hear even months after the 2023 season ended, but Auburn’s leading receiver last season was a tight end.

FIU transfer Rivaldo Fairweather was a bright spot in Auburn’s offense last season, as he became a reliable receiving threat for Auburn quarterbacks, as he was the Tigers’ most-targeted receiver.

Despite being the Tigers’ leading receiver last season, Fairweather was left unsatisfied with how the season played out. He told Justin Ferguson of the Auburn Observer that he has business to take care of in 2024.

I just felt like I left a lot of food on the table. It’s unfinished business here,” Fairweather said after Auburn’s loss to Maryland in the Music City Bowl. “I know Coach (Hugh) Freeze has a great plan for us here and that we will be way better than we were last year.”

Outside of Fairweather, Auburn has several players at tight end that could make an impact this season. Here is a rundown of every tight end on Auburn’s roster ahead of A-Day.

Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

Auburn’s leading receiver from 2023 is back to aid an improved receiving corps. Rivaldo Fairweather hauled in 38 passes for 394 yards and six touchdowns last season. He caught 38 of 57 passes thrown his way and added 151 yards after contact. Fairweather looks to improve his drop rate this season, as he led all receivers with six drops last season.

Austin Perryman/Auburn Athletics

rico walker joins Auburn’s tight end room after spending his freshman season at Maryland. The Hickory, North Carolina native caught four passes for 27 yards in his initial season at Maryland in 2023.

Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers

Camden Etheredge returns as a sophomore to Auburn’s tight end room. The Leeds native appeared in two games last season.

Jake Crandall/The Montgomery Advertiser

Grant Hidalgo returns to Auburn for his junior season. He saw action in two games last season but did not record stats in either game.

Elaina Eichorn/Auburn Athletics

After playing in just three games during his freshman season in 2022, Micah Riley saw his production increase last season. He appeared in 13 games where he made two catches for 40 yards and a touchdown in the win over Samford. His strong suit was pass blocking, as he graded out at 70.7 according to Pro Football Focus. He allowed just four pressure opportunities in 44 snaps where a pass was attempted.

AP Photo/Butch Dill

luke deal returns for his sixth season as an Auburn Tiger. Deal has recorded 14 catches for 110 yards in his Auburn career, with his best season taking place in 2021, when he caught nine passes for 65 yards and a touchdown. He did not record a receiving stat last season but was effective as a pass blocker. According to PFF, he allowed six pressures in 254 snaps at tight end.

Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports

Auburn’s tallest target returns to provide depth at the tight end position. Brandon Frazier, who stands 6-foot-7 and weighs 252 pounds, was Auburn’s second-leading receiving tight end last season by hauling in seven passes for 73 yards and two scores. His most notable game of the season was against LSU in Baton Rouge, where he secured three passes for 52 yards and a touchdown.

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si.com

Auburn freshman defensive lineman explains who is the best offensive lineman he has gone up against in practice

Andrew Stefaniak

~2 minutes

Who is Auburn's best offensive lineman?

Offensive line is a position that has been interesting at Auburn for a very long time. It has been an up and down position for a while, and the Tigers have struggled to bring in top recruits, especially at the tackle position. 

One of the first things Coach Hugh Freeze did when he got on campus was go and get a bunch of talented offensive linemen out of the portal and some from the high school level. 

These additions helped Auburn have a serviceable offensive line a season ago, which is something we haven't seen in a few years. Now Coach Freeze is starting to land some talented linemen in the high school ranks, and hopefully, this will help sure up this position group for years to come. 

Freshman defensive lineman Malik Blocton joined the Locked On Auburn Podcast and was asked which is the best offensive lineman he has gone against during his time on the Plains. Without thinking for a long time, Blocton responded, "Either Dillon Wade or Connor Lew." 

Wade came in from Tulsa and had a really good season for the Tigers a year ago, proving to be a big get in the portal for Coach Freeze. Lew was a true freshman a season ago who was launched into the lineup when center Avery Jones went down with an injury and played really good football. 

Both Wade and Lew will likely start for the Tigers this season as the offensive line group looks to take another step in the right direction. An offense can't move without good offensive line play, and during the Hugh Freeze era at Auburn, the Tigers will move bodies in the trenches. 

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al.com

What are the early impressions of Auburn OC Derrick Nix?: ‘It felt like winning football’

Published: Mar. 05, 2024, 9:14 a.m.

4–5 minutes

Auburn QBs compete on first day of Spring practice; Payton Thorne, Walker White, Hank Brown

Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze says he wasn’t paying much attention to Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin’s social media antics when Auburn was in the process of hiring away Derrick Nix from Ole Miss.

“Can people quit calling me and telling me (Derrick Nix) is at (Auburn),” Kiffin wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Kiffin paired the post with a picture Nix working at the Ole Miss facility.

Eventually, Nix reached a deal to become Auburn’s next offensive coordinator and to reunite with Freeze, who Nix coached under for five years at Ole Miss.

And who broke the news on Jan. 17?

It was the Ole Miss social media accounts, which posted a statement penned by Kiffin.

“Look, I love Lane, I love his family and y’all believe it or not, I’m not reading a lot of Twitter these days,” Freeze said Feb. 29 when asked about Kiffin’s antics.

“But Nix... I hired him first, so I guess I have a right to him,” Freeze joked.

In the first staff he assembled, it was former Tulsa head coach Philip Montgomery who Freeze brought over to be the Tigers’ offensive coordinator. But after a year of watching Auburn’s offense sputter and use an atypical two-quarterback rotation in 2023, Freeze made the decision not to retain Montgomery on Jan. 5.

Montgomery’s firing sparked the search for a new offensive coordinator at Auburn and from the very start, all signs pointed towards Nix considering he and Freeze’s history from their time back at Ole Miss.

“This is not a negative toward anyone else, but yes, I’m very much more comfortable walking down the halls and walking in the offensive room and saying, ‘Alright, now, I know what means,’ and, ‘the adjustment I’m going to do off that if they do that,’ comes naturally to me,” Freeze said. “Excited to again see Derrick step into a leadership role there along with the other guys that we have.”

But Freeze knew what he was getting in bringing in Nix, who Freeze calls “one of the best recruiters, best men, best football coaches that I’ve been around.”

However, the history between Freeze and Nix means very little to Auburn’s current crop of offensive players, who are just now beginning to get their first taste of a Nix-led offense as spring practices have gotten underway.

That said, it hasn’t taken long for Auburn’s players to see the offense take strides in the right direction.

“The two words that stand out to me are urgency and energy. That’s what I feel like he’s brought so far,” Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne said of Nix on Feb. 29. “Our detail is way up — attention to detail on offense. Just practice Tuesday, it’s only one practice, but it felt like winning football. It felt like good offensive football.”

With Nix in the fold, Freeze hopes to return back to the “only thing I’ve known that has given us success everywhere we’ve been,” which is an RPO-driven run game and the play-action passes off of it.

The Tigers tried incorporating some of that into the mix last season, but didn’t have all the pieces they needed to execute.

“In order to do that you’ve got to have a receiver or three that can win in some one-on-ones and quarterbacks that can execute it,” Freeze said. “I do think our quarterbacks can do that.”

During the first day of practice on a windy Tuesday afternoon in Auburn, Thorne admits he and the Tigers’ offense’s execution wasn’t the best.

“It’s Day 1 rarely are you going to execute at the highest level,” Thorne said. “But just the way that practice moves and the tempo we went at, the finish on every play as a ball carrier and everything that we’re emphasizing... I’m in complete support and I’m completely behind Coach Nix and obviously Coach Freeze. He’s been outstanding so far.”

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247sports.com

Jason Caldwells Monday morning quarterback column

Jason Caldwell

8–10 minutes

Talking a variety of Auburn sports.

Crunch time

As Auburn prepares for the final week of the regular season, the Tigers are dealing with the loss of one of its heart and soul guys in Lior Berman. He’s someone his coaches and teammates believed in because of the hard work he’s put in since arriving on campus. The silver lining for Auburn is that they’ve got the depth to make up for the loss with a versatile player like Chris Moore capable of moving into the Berman role down the stretch for the this team. Getting Jaylin Williams back sooner than expected was big news for this team as it allowed him to not miss too much time and develop rust from being away from the court. He was able to slide back into the rotation without missing much of a beat. But his absence forced Chaney Johnson to step up and he’s done just that. We may look back at Williams’ injury and see it as a huge blessing in disguise for this team as they look to finish strong heading into the postseason.

Early impressions

It’s impossible to gather much from Auburn’s first two spring practices without them putting on the pads, but from first glance you can see right away that this is a team that has worked hard since December. That shows up more for the second-year guys than anywhere else. One of the players that looks different to me heading into year two is defensive lineman Darron Reed. He wasn’t an early graduate, so he missed that important winter conditioning a year ago. After having that for the first time, Reed looks trim and strong as the Tigers hit the field this spring. From the true freshman group, you can already see noticeable changes for guys like Cam Coleman, Joe Phillips and Jamonta Waller in terms of body composition. 

Another interesting newcomer is massive Percy Lewis. Even though he’s listed at 6-7, 355, the Mississippi State transfer has already trimmed down since arriving on campus and we’ve been told that he’s got the ability to really bend for a guy his size. That’s a huge part of the equation when you talk about playing left tackle in this offense and in the Southeastern Conference.

Continued improvement

The Auburn women’s basketball team has put itself in a great position to earn the first NCAA Tournament berth for the program in five years after a win in Gainesville on Sunday improved coach Johnnie Harris’ team to 19-10 overall and 8-8 in SEC play. Honesty Scott-Grayson’s average of 18.3 points per game this season puts her in the Top 10 for a single season in Auburn history, which is some very lofty company. Having a player like that on the roster along with an improving bench and an aggressive defense makes this an Auburn team that others don’t want to see in the postseason.

Maddie the Magnificent

I’m not sure I have seen a better run for any Auburn athlete in any sport in my 25 years on this job than the one that Auburn softball pitcher Maddie Penta is on right now. For the season, Penta is 6-2 with an ERA of just 0.60 in nine starts, but in her last four outings she has been as dominant as anyone I have ever seen in her sport or any other for that matter.

On February 25th, Penta pitched against Northern Iowa and didn’t allow a hit in seven innings while striking out 11 and walking just one. Four days later, Penta followed that up with a six inning perfect game in a win over Georgia State. In that game, she struck out 13.

Two days later, Penta pitched against Northwestern and didn’t allow a run on four hits while striking out 10 and walking just one. She followed that up on Sunday by allowing just two hits in six innings and striking out 11.

For her career, Penta is 66-28 with an ERA of less than 1.70. She needs one more win to equal the record for most wins by an Auburn softball pitcher with 67. Kaylee Carlson was 67-14 from 2016-18 with the Tigers.

'It's time to get hot' in March, and Auburn's shooters are surging

Auburn is currently on pace for its best offensive finish to the regular season in the Bruce Pearl era

Auburn has had one of the better offenses in college basketball all season, but Bruce Pearl feels only recently have the Tigers flashed some of their shooting potential.

Pearl wondered in the offseason how good this team would be defensively because of what was lost from last season, and some of his new-look personnel. That obviously hasn’t been any sort of question mark. The Tigers have been top 5 in defensive efficiency all season and currently boast the nation’s No. 3 shooting percentage defense. 

Defense wins championships, as the saying goes. But burying a bunch of 3-pointers doesn’t exactly hurt, either.

“My emphasis on the guys right now: It's March,” Pearl said after Auburn’s win over Mississippi State. “It's time to make shots, not take shots. Guys have been putting in the work, and that's what it takes to win."

The Tigers have had a few reliable shooters most of the season, and their top players have been on their game of late. Going back to the Valentine’s Day win blistering of South Carolina, Johni Broome, Denver Jones, Chad Baker-Mazara and even Chaney Johnson have been the pulse of a strong shooting touch for Auburn. Jaylin Williams has been Auburn’s most efficient scorer this season but has seen his numbers drop just slightly since his injury.

AUBURN’S TOP SHOOTERS (LAST 5 GAMES)

Chaney Johnson: 59.1% from the floor, 37.5% from 3

Chad Baker-Mazara: 58.3%, 66.7% from 3

Johni Broome: 53.7%, 47.1% from 3

Denver Jones: 44.%, 50.0% from 3

“Coach has been saying recently, this is the time to get hot,” Broome said after the Mississippi State win. “It's time to make a run. … We don't want to lose any more games. It's time to get hot, so let's get hot.”

Auburn’s offensive response from the Kentucky loss — which was the worst shooting performance in Neville Arena in more than a decade — has been impressive: 97 points at Georgia without Williams in the lineup; 84 points at Tennessee, KenPom’s No. 3-rated defense; and 78 points against Mississippi State, KenPom’s No. 16 defense.

Of course, two remaining games can shake up the Tigers’ recent offensive averages in a big way, but it’s worth noting opponents have shot better than 40 percent from the floor in 10 straight games against Missouri — and better than 45 percent in six of those games. 

Georgia, meanwhile, was on the receiving end of Auburn’s second-best offensive performance of the season last week in Athens, and has also allowed six of its last 10 opponents to shoot better than 45 percent. Auburn hasn’t shot worse than 45 percent in a home game against the Bulldogs since 2017-18.

Needless to say, catching fire in March can be extremely crucial for a team’s chances at a postseason run. Here’s how each of Pearl’s teams closed out their last five games of the regular season shooting the basketball:

2014-15: 39.5% from the field, 33.6% from 3

2015-16: 39.5%, 33.3% from 3

2016-17: 44.4%, 39.4% from 3

2017-18: 38.3%, 30.1% from 3

2018-19: 42.2%, 35.4% from 3

2019-20: 43.5%, 33.8% from 3

2020-21: 39.1%, 28.2% from 3

2021-22: 41.6%, 34.8% from 3

2022-23: 44.1%, 39.4% from 3

2023-24 (previous 3 games): 52.6%, 47.8% from 3

Additionally, Auburn has now shot better than 40 percent from beyond the arc in three straight games for the first time since the start of the 2017-18 season. The Tigers have never done so four games in a row in the Pearl era.

Pearl has enjoyed telling his team some “March stories” over the past few weeks, and the Final Four team’s finish to the regular season is obviously among them. That squad had a clunker in late February, scoring 53 points at Kentucky, but it shot better than 40 percent in each of its last four games.

No other team in the Pearl era has done that over its last four games. This year’s group, obviously, has a chance this week. 

There is obviously no exact formula for postseason success, and any sort of unfavorable matchup — or even just an off day shooting the ball — can quickly spell disaster for even the top seeds in the field. The second- and third-place Auburn teams behind this one in terms of late-season shooting — 2016-17 and last season’s squad — went 0-2 in the SEC tournament and won one NCAA tournament game.

This team will be its own contained story, as the Tigers look to make it back to the second weekend after two straight second-round exits. They’ve known all season long they’ve had the defense to hang with anybody. But now it’s time to make some shots, and Auburn’s seen the ball go through the hoop more over the last couple weeks than any point in the season.

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[WarTim 3,456]

Thanks Fifty. Much appreciated brother.