Auburn football: Jboy calls Jarquez Hunter 2nd best Tigers RB

Most of the eyes from national college football insiders are fixated on Auburn football’s lead rusher–and in some circles a Heisman hopeful–Tank Bigsby.

And with good reason. Bigsby averaged six yards per carry and ran the ball 138 times while collecting 834 yards and five touchdowns in his freshman season on the Plains. His dominance on the ground helped compensate for an underwhelming year from Bo Nix and a season where the typically tough Tigers defense was underwhelming due to injuries and COVID-19 related opt-outs.

There’s far less attention on the running backs behind Bigsby on a national scale, but there’s been plenty of chatter on the backups in Auburn football circles.

Shaun Shivers, the team’s RB2 in 2020, has seen his fair share of criticism this offseason, resulting in a back-and-forth with USA Today’s Auburn Wire involving Shivers, Anthony Schwartz, and Shivers’ mother regarding a comment about him being “scared of contact”.

Devan Barrett has returned to the RB position he was initially recruited at, though it may take some time for him to settle into his old position.

The other prominent rusher in the RB room, Jarquez Hunter, has made some noise in his first offseason in orange and blue, and has seriously impressed with his work ethic early on.

In fact, SEC guru Jake “Jboy” Crain went as far as saying that Hunter is already the second-best RB in the Auburn football backfield:

Hunter was an accomplished high school stud in Mississippi, going for 1,687 yards rushing with 22 touchdown runs and 2,069 all-purpose yards as a senior. He was even named Mississippi’s Mr. Football.

We’ll see if that will translate to opportunities in the Auburn football offense. He’ll need to prove he does indeed have RB2 talent to get a lion’s share of the carries that don’t go to Bigsby in 2021 as a true freshman.