Auburn football: Taking a look at the Tigers’ talented group of receivers
Out of all the former Auburn receivers I named earlier, junior Seth Williams has a good chance to be better than any of them. In fact, the former four-star recruit has a chance to put together one of the best individual receiving seasons in program history if things go right.
Last season, Williams put up 59 catches for 830 yards and eight touchdowns — all of which were team highs. Keep in mind, that was with a true freshman throwing him the ball. Give Williams and Bo Nix another year to develop chemistry and the results can be explosive.
Most experts seem to agree with that as Williams is already seen as a potential future first-round draft pick in either 2021 or 2022.
Williams is arguably the team’s best player going into the 2020 season and with a 6-foot-3, 224-pound frame, soft hands and an incredible catch radius, Williams has the potential to be one of the best receivers in the country and could very well put up Auburn’s first 1,000-yard receiving season since 1999.
Alongside Williams is perhaps Auburn’s most underrated weapon. Junior Anthony Schwartz is probably the fastest man in college football and should serve as the Tigers’ No. 2 wideout.
A hand injury kept Schwartz from 100 percent for the beginning of last season and when he finally returned to play, the coaches seemed hesitant to give him the ball.
But, when you have a player with record-breaking speed like Schwartz does, you need to find ways to get him the ball. No excuses.
Last season, Schwartz caught 41 passes for 440 yards but only had one receiving TD. As a freshman in 2018, the speedster carried the ball 27 times and found the endzone five times that. That was reduced to just 11 carries and two rushing touchdowns this past season.
Hopefully, the track star is fully healthy this season. If he is, I expect Malzahn and new offensive coordinator Chad Morris to try and draw up more plays for Schwartz. I’d be very surprised to see a jump in Schwartz’s numbers in 2020.