AUBURN — One of the most interesting aspects of being a college football team beat writer is that you don’t actually get to watch a lot of college football on Saturdays. You watch the team you cover, of course, but before the game, you’re often traveling to the stadium, and after, you’re writing deep into the night.
With that in mind, I’m very pleased that Auburn’s second bye week happened to fall on the same day LSU and Alabama are meeting in Tuscaloosa. That’s a game I want to watch from my couch, adult beverage in hand.
But before we settle in for that one, let’s talk about Auburn football and men’s basketball (which plays Davidson at 5 p.m. CT tonight in Annapolis, Maryland) in this week’s Mailbag.
As always, you can send me your questions on Twitter each week. I will answer the best ones on Friday.
Here we go:
What’s it going to take to get Auburn to schedule and play Troy on a recurring basis?
— Ronald (@tuffyt28)
This question comes in response to Thursday’s news that Auburn will host South Alabama in a 2025 nonconference game. That will mark the first time the Tigers have played the Jaguars and the first time they have faced off against an in-state, nonconference FBS opponent since they played UAB in its first game ever as an FBS team in 1996. They have never played Troy.
I, for one, would love to see it happen. I want to see Auburn not only host those teams at Jordan-Hare Stadium, but also play those teams at their places. Those road atmospheres could be incredible. The problem is that the Tigers have nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing those games, which is why they’re few and far between and, in the case of Troy, maybe unlikely to happen. But man, would it be fun.
Auburn should be fans of LSU and whoever is playing Oregon, Utah, Oklahoma and Baylor. Checks out?
— Graham (@grahamcarr2)
All right, I’ll bite: I’m on record as saying that Auburn will not make the College Football Playoff (because no two-loss team has ever made it and this would be a two-loss team that didn’t even win its own division), but if enough chaos unfolds, I guess it could theoretically happen.
Here’s what Auburn would need from the 10 teams ranked ahead of it:
- Ohio State: To win out and be an undefeated Big Ten champion.
- LSU: To win out against Alabama, Ole Miss, Arkansas and Texas A&M, then win the SEC Championship Game. Auburn needs there to be no doubt about who the best team in the conference is.
- Alabama: To lose to LSU and at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Nov. 30.
- Penn State: To lose to Ohio State on Nov. 23. Probably to Minnesota on Saturday, too.
- Clemson: Doesn't matter; Clemson is going to waltz to the ACC title and make the playoff. Book it.
- Georgia: To lose Nov. 16 at Jordan-Hare Stadium and not win the SEC Championship Game.
- Oregon: To not win the Pac-12 Championship Game. Auburn owns the head-to-head, but that might not be good enough to put them ahead of a one-loss conference champion (since it isn’t right now).
- Utah, 9. Oklahoma, 10. Florida, 12. Baylor: To lose one more game (or, in the Bears’ case, lose for the first time).
If all that happens, then you'd have Ohio State, LSU and Clemson in the top three. But that No. 4 spot would be the wildest of wildcards, which is the type of chaos Auburn needs to have any sort of chance.
Of course, none of that matters if Auburn can’t pull off a repeat of 2013 and 2017 and win out against Georgia, Samford and Alabama at home. That’s really the only thing the Tigers need to focus on. Win those games, and they’ll get a chance to sit back on Dec. 8 and let the chips fall where they may. Lose even one, and the long shot dream is dead.
Will Auburn beat Georgia?
— Rob (@robinsteauxn)
Auburn has a real chance. If I had to pick the game today, I think I would pick the Tigers in a low-scoring game. Georgia is more similar to Auburn than it is to either LSU or Alabama, in that it doesn’t have a high-powered offense and leans more on a great defense. That could make the matchup fairly even, and Auburn will be playing at home, where true freshman quarterback Bo Nix has been much more comfortable this season. If the defense plays up to its usual standard and the offense can turn a few more drives over midfield into points than it did in last week’s 20-14 win over Ole Miss, that might be enough. The Bulldogs have scored 24 or fewer points in four of their previous five games, and they won’t be coming off a bye week — they host a 5-3 Missouri team Saturday night.
1) Do you think Bo Nix starting at such a young age affects Auburn quarterback recruiting for the next couple of years since he’s likely to have the job locked down?
2) What is Auburn going to do about all these running backs? Boobee Whitlow, Shaun Shivers, D.J. Williams, Harold Joiner and Tank Bigsby next year. Do you expect everybody to stay and agree to smaller roles, or do you think some will inevitably transfer out?
— Peyton (@itswidgeon)
1) It’s certainly possible. As we learned with Joey Gatewood last week, all kids want to do nowadays is play (see: Justin Fields, Jalen Hurts, Kelly Bryant, Austin Kendall, Tate Martell, Malik Willis and countless others), and at the quarterback position, there can be only one “guy” at a time. That guy at Auburn for at least the next two seasons after this one is probably going to be Nix, which might keep the Tigers from considering the top passers in the 2020 class and the top passers in the 2020 class from considering the Tigers. The good news, though, is that Auburn already has commits at the position in each of the next two classes — three-star Chayil Garnett in 2020, and four-star Aaron McLaughlin in 2021 — and it already has Nix, who is the type of talent it would be looking for on the recruiting trail anyway.
MORE: Is ‘Gus Malzahn can’t develop quarterbacks’ fact or myth?
2) This is a great problem to have the same way having a true freshman starting quarterback you know you’re going to be committed to building around for multiple years is. Unlike quarterback, Auburn can play multiple running backs. It certainly is this season — four different backs (Whitlow, Williams, Shivers and Kam Martin) are either over or on pace to go over 50 carries, which would be the first time in the Malzahn era. And given how damaging to the offense injuries to Kamryn Pettway, Kerryon Johnson and Whitlow were over the past three seasons, having multiple backs is clearly the better method. Look no further than the way Williams was able to step in almost seamlessly for an injured Whitlow this season. Sure, there’s always the possibility someone could decide to go elsewhere — players are going to do what they feel is best for them, and in this house, we respect athletes’ decisions. But if the Tigers do go into next season with Whitlow, Shivers, Williams, Joiner and Bigsby (a four-star 2020 commit), they’ll be absolutely thrilled about the possibilities.
I know a defensive tackle will likely never win a Heisman Trophy, but how possible is it that Derrick Brown goes to New York for the ceremony?
— Jared (@JaredWilkinson)
It would be fun to see, but it’s hard to imagine it happening at this point. Brown is having a fantastic season for Auburn, but the Heisman (like it or not) is a counting stats award, and the senior doesn’t really have them with eight tackles for loss, four sacks and two forced fumbles through nine games. If a defensive lineman were to make the final three that goes to New York, it would probably have to be Ohio State edge rusher Chase Young, who has a ridiculous 15½ tackles for loss, 13½ sacks and five forced fumbles. But odds are it’s probably going to be three quarterbacks. Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Jalen Hurts and Justin Fields have been too good this season.
Do you like seeing players challenge fans to stay longer at games? (I do.)
— @AuburnedYou
I totally understood where Auburn’s players were coming from Saturday. They were clinging to a one-score lead in the fourth quarter of their first home game in five weeks, and a large portion of the sellout crowd — specifically in the student section — had already headed for the exits. Yes, it was a chilly night. But everyone has a weather app on their smartphones, and it’s November. There’s no excuse for not checking the hour-by-hour forecast before you decide what to wear. I also had some people suggest to me on Twitter that people might have left because they’ve had enough of Malzahn. I don’t know if that was actually the case, but I will say this — if you’re willing to quit on an SEC game that you paid money to attend and that your team is winning just because you no longer like the seventh-year head coach (who still has the Tigers ranked No. 11 in the country, by the way), then are you really an Auburn fan?
I would bet that message from the players was heard loud and clear. If the fans can’t show up for 7-2 Auburn vs. (probably) 8-1 Georgia in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, well, that’s on them.
Which will be higher this season: Austin Wiley 3-point attempts, or Owen Pappoe sacks?
— Josh (@joshdub_)
The standout freshman linebacker has two sacks through eight games and still has at least four more games to add to that total. Wiley has attempted only three 3-pointers in 53 career games and missed all of them. But the senior center does work on that shot in practice, and I’m pretty sure head coach Bruce Pearl gives the green light to absolutely everyone on his roster. There was a moment during Tuesday’s 83-74 win over Georgia Southern where I thought he was going to pull from the top of the key, and I sat up in my chair on press row I was so excited. So, to answer the question, I’m going to say Pappoe ends up with more sacks this season than Wiley has 3-point attempts. But I’m also going to root for myself to be wrong.
Let’s use Josh’s question to transition into some basketball talk:
Is the real Austin Wiley standing up?
— Micah (@MicahGarner50)
The Tigers certainly hope so. This is the Wiley they have been waiting for. He very quietly double-doubled with 10 points and 10 rebounds in the exhibition win over Eckerd, then scored 13 points with eight boards in the season opener against Georgia Southern. He hit 8 of 14 shots and 7 of 9 free throws in those games while blocking four shots. The 6-foot-10, 260-pound senior was far bigger than any player on either of those teams — 6-foot-10, 250-pound Davidson big man Luka Brajkovic will provide a more even match Friday — but it’s still a strong start. The two concerns with Wiley are his health and his hands. He looks very spry now, but he dealt with lower body injuries during each of the past two seasons. He has also committed six turnovers in just 37 minutes, with a lot of those coming just when he’s tried to accept entry passes in the post (which is not a new problem). But if he can stay healthy and hang onto the ball, he might finally be able to put together the type of campaign everyone expected when he first arrived in 2016.
How good can Isaac Okoro be by the end of the season?
— Zach (@Zdz17)
Good enough that you might have to worry about him leaving. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie already has him in his initial 2020 NBA mock draft. Okoro has prototypical size for a wing at 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds. Pearl has repeatedly described him as one of Auburn’s best defenders and one capable of matching up one through five. The value of that is proven by the fact that he played 30 minutes in his college debut Tuesday. He’s already shown himself a capable contributor in the dirty work categories (rebounds, assists, steals and blocks). The only question about him coming in was how far along his offensive game was — he scored 12 points on 6-for-9 shooting against Georgia Southern, but all of those were layups or dunks. If the jump shot he spent the entire summer working on starts to hit during games, look out.
Favorite player so far for basketball?
— @AuburnedYou
As a beat writer, I don’t pick favorites. But I will name a few (other than Okoro) that I’m very excited to watch this season — Samir Doughty, who I think is going to be a tremendous defender and offensive playmaker who has maybe the best chance to lead the team in scoring; Devan Cambridge, who has the size and leaping ability to be this season’s version of Malik Dunbar (though maybe with not quite the same energy and personality); and Tyrell Jones, who has enough speed and scoring ability to be dynamic once he gets his feet under him.
What is your biggest concern with the men’s basketball team going forward after seeing the season opener?
— Seth (@seth_j26)
The thing that stood out most Tuesday — the turnovers. Twenty-one is way too many. That has to be fixed. Other than that, it might be Auburn’s ability to feed the post and consistently score inside, just because Wiley is really the team’s only traditional post player. That will be needed, because this team may also not have near as many reliable 3-point threats as last season without Jared Harper, Bryce Brown and Chuma Okeke, especially with the arc being moved back. But these Tigers are deep, long and athletic. There are going to be some growing pains, and they might struggle or even lose some games in nonconference play (Friday night against a well-coached, veteran-laden Davidson team is a tough spot), but once the veterans get fully established in their new roles and the newcomers get comfortable, this could be a dangerous team.
Who is in the Auburn deep state?
— @ESPN1067
Drunk Aubie.
Josh Vitale is the Auburn beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. You can follow him on Twitter at @JoshVitale. To reach him by email, click here.
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