Auburn football: Numbers you need to know entering Week 2 vs. Alabama State
By Rob Maxwell
Who’s on the field?
The stat: 53
Auburn put 53 players in the game last week against Washington. By comparison, the Tigers played 47 last year in Week 2 against Clemson.
Of those 53, 10 freshmen received playing time. That’s a significant amount of young players.
All four of the freshmen receivers (Seth Williams, Matthew Hill, Shedrick Jackson, Anthony Schwartz) played, along with Shaun Shivers, Harold Joiner, Richard Jibunor, Zakoby McClain, Smoke Monday and Jamien Sherwood.
Expect to see that number rise Saturday against Alabama State with RB Asa Martin getting his first playing time as well as CB Christian Tutt. It’s possible that with DBs Javaris Davis and Jamel Dean banged up that Roger McCreary gets his first action, too. Linebackers Michael Harris and Josh Marsh could play as well as QB Cord Sandberg since Joey Gatewood is sidelined with a thumb injury.
What it means: The deeper Auburn is, the better. If that means double-digit freshmen are on the two-deep and playing valuable minutes, so be it. That just means they are the best players to get the job done. Auburn brought in a lot of talent in the 2018 class. We caught a glimpse of that Saturday and expect to see much more of it Saturday.