Auburn football: 3 surprising developments that could unfold in 2021

The last time Auburn football had a new head coach, the Tigers ended up taking a one-loss regular record into the National Championship game and coming within seconds of a second national championship in four years.

This time around, none of that is expected. Auburn is slated to finish in the bottom half of the SEC West, and a rough first year is a popular forecast for Bryan Harsin and his newly implemented coaching staff.

While the big picture is a bit tougher to visualize, honing in on certain aspects of the season can give a window to a clearer understanding of how this season may play out.

Injuries can throw any of these predictions out the window but given the developments of the offseason, we can picture these surprising developments play out in 2021:

Surprising Auburn football 2021 season development #1: Tank Bigsby runs away with the Heisman

This really wouldn’t surprise many Tiger fans that saw Tank Bigsby bowl through defenses with ease last season, but not many across the country would see a Heisman trophy as a possibility for the sophomore.

Only one running back has won the award since 2010 (Derrick Henry in 2015) and Bigsby’s low TD total in 2020 (5) kept him off of highlight reels and out of the minds of those unaffected by his bulldozing ways last year.

This season, Bigsby has a shot to truly break out due to the strong possibility that Bryan Harsin’s offense will feature more creativity, and thus, better opportunities for him to go on game-breaking runs.