Chandler Wooten’s value for Kevin Steele’s Auburn defense extended into multiple facets of the game.

Wooten was a significant player in Auburn’s four-man linebacker rotation last season (25 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and an interception), in addition to his dependability on special teams. He was most useful for Steele as a leader — a calming yet stern and experienced presence for an Auburn linebacking corps certainly coming into its own.

That upstart group of ‘backers — first team All-SEC performer K.J. Britt, tackling machine Zakoby McClain and budding star Owen Pappoe — figures to be one of the SEC’s best units. But they’ll still miss their fourth member, Wooten, after he decided to opt out of the 2020 season last month.

There are plenty of suitors hoping to replace him, and with less than two weeks until kickoff against Kentucky, a pair of true freshmen appear to be locked in a close battle for Wooten’s up-for-grabs playing time.

“Cam Riley and Wesley Steiner are the two guys,” Steele said last week when asked about the fourth linebacker spot.

Seeing as Steiner and Riley are a pair of high-level prospects from Auburn’s 2020 class, it’s not surprising that they’re not wasting time in making a strong push for a valuable spot on Auburn’s defense.

But Steele alluded to the fact that, after Auburn has dealt with COVID-19 cases on the team in the past few months, some players haven’t been able to fill the roles coaches thought they would because they’ve been away from the team while quarantining.

“We go out there any given day, and have in the last 13 days, where the close-contact and the testing and all that stuff, it’s been kind of intriguing to — OK, you got a guy out and now you got to give reps to another guy,” Steele said. “It’s been forced a little bit. We’re used to that by injury; we’re not used to that by the testing cycle we’re dealing with. But it’s been — I wouldn’t say frustrating, because we expected it; we kind of knew it was going to happen, so we took a positive attitude about it, but the positive thing that has come out of it is there’s been days where we had to get experience with a younger guy and he had to go.

Steele mentioned freshman linebacker Desmond Tisdol “would have been” also competing for the No. 4 linebacker spot before the defensive coordinator stopped himself, saying the “elephant in the room” has changed practice plans for players and coaches alike.

“Even with the ones (starting defense) occasionally, you’d look out there and have a freshman who had not earned that, but because of the situation with injuries and the testing cycles that they had to go,” Steele said. “That’s helped speed up some of the process for some of those younger guys.”

Playing time for the youngsters was also freed up by Josh Marsh’s opt-out a few weeks after Wooten’s. Marsh, who was expected to compete for a bigger role after Wooten’s decision, had appeared in three games over the past two seasons, with three total tackles and a forced fumble.

Steiner, Tisdol and Riley make up Auburn’s 2020 linebacker recruiting haul, with Steiner — a top-15 inside linebacker prospect in the nation — leading the pack as one of the Tigers’ highest-rated defensive signees in the class.

He looks to fit the mold of Britt’s middle linebacker role for the future of Steele’s defense — a stocky, hard-hitting and overwhelmingly strong gap-fitter, with natural leadership ability to match. Riley is one of the most athletically intriguing Auburn freshmen, with a long wingspan at 6-foot-4 and the versatility to play inside and outside linebacker. Tisdol was a highly efficient tackler in high school and showed the ability to strafe sideline to sideline like an SEC defender.

“They’re definitely going to have a chance to play; they just got to keep taking it day by day and getting better,” Pappoe said earlier in camp. “With all three of (the freshmen), I think they’re going to be really good players.”

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