Auburn football: Multiple Tigers voice support for playing the 2020 season

Multiple Auburn football players have joined players like Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence in an online movement to play the 2020 college football season.

It’s safe to say the 2020 college football season is up in the air. Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, safety concerns have possibly halted what would have been an important season for players across the country.

And while a growing number of players have decided to opt-out of the 2020 season, including Auburn’s Chandler Wooten and Traivon Leonard, there is also an increasing number of players voicing their support to play college football this season.

The movement, started by Clemson superstar quarterback Trevor Lawrence this weekend on Twitter, started with the hashtag #WeWantToPlay. Back in July, Auburn sophomore signal-caller, Bo Nix tweeted out a simple message: “Let’s play football”

Things began to pick up this weekend when Nix retweeted Lawrence’s Twitter thread detailing how many players would be less safe from COVID-19 without the supervision of coaches and medical staff at their respective colleges and would be in danger if they were to be sent home where social distancing is highly unlikely.

Nix later joined in on the movement and tweeted out #WeWantToPlay.

While Lawrence wasn’t the first college football player to advocate for a season in 2020, he is undoubtedly one of the games’ biggest stars and has been vocal about the issue which has brought it to the forefront.

The #WeWantToPlay movement was quickly combined with the #WeAreUnited movement which was started earlier in the month by athletes from the Pac-12 seeking to unify and earn fair treatment for college athletes.

The conjoined effort calls for a 2020 football season, universally mandated health and safety protocols, giving the players to opt-out, guarantee a player’s eligibility, letting players have a bigger voice and create a representative of the players of all Power 5 conferences.

And while he decided to opt-out of the season last week due to health concerns and the future birth of his newborn son, Auburn linebacker Chandler Wooten seemingly voiced his support of the movement and the choices of players like Nix.

Along with Nix and Wooten, Auburn juniors Smoke Monday and Anthony Schwartz have also joined in on the movement with tweets at the start of the week.

Monday, who is expected to be one of the leaders of Auburn’s defense in 2020, tallied 20 tackles, two TFLs and one interception as a backup last season.

As for Schwartz, the junior wideout is arguably the fastest player in all of college football and has recorded 1,126 yards from scrimmage and 10 total touchdowns in his first two seasons on The Plains.

Whether or not a 2020 college football season happens is still yet to be seen but things took a turn for the worse this week when both the MAC and the Big Ten officially announced they would be canceling the upcoming football season.

While the SEC just recently announced its 10-game conference-only schedule, conferences like the Pac-12 are expected to follow in the Big Ten’s footsteps and become the second Power 5 conference to officially cancel the season.

The movement has also gained support from President Donald Trump and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany who both tweeted out support for the return of college football.

As for Nix, the former five-star recruit became the first true freshman to start the season at QB for Auburn since 1947. In 13 games as the Tigers’ starter, Nix completed 57.6 percent of his passes for 2,542 yards, 16 touchdowns and six interceptions.

Nix also showed his dual-threat ability, adding 313 yards and seven additional TDs on the year while leading Auburn to a 9-4 record for the season.