AUBURN | The sun was intense Friday and Saturday.

The players felt it, of course. But so did the coaches and even the media, many of which broke out in a sweat just standing and watching for 20 minutes.

So it’s not necessarily surprising that Auburn’s first couple of practices were a little lethargic.

“That heat, boy. That heat's different right now,” said junior nickel Donovan Kaufman. “I'll say if we really had to (play this week), yeah, we could. Them decks is different, too.

“But all that did, really, is bring us closer as a team. Everybody's up there struggling, like the first day of practice. We were all out there hurting. It's hot.”

Of course, the season doesn’t start tomorrow and this team still has three and a half more weeks to be in peak condition before Mercer visits Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Bryan Harsin, the Tigers’ second-year coach, is already seeing progress.

“I thought today we had the most urgency of all the practices we’ve had so far,” said Harsin following Tuesday’s workout. “That’s just getting from the sidelines onto the field and guys transitioning. Our conditioning happens in practice.

“I thought we did the split practices, that got a few guys. It was hard on them. We came together and had another hard practice. I thought the guys felt that. We had a day off yesterday and we felt that today in a good way. We came out and the energy was good and the focus was good. The urgency of just getting from drill to drill, on the field, off the field, was what it should look like today. That was better.”

The improvement comes as Auburn builds towards its first major scrimmage Saturday evening. That will be the first big step in deterring depth charts, playing rotations and eventually starters.

“We’ll find out after the scrimmage where we are,” said Harsin. “This week is going to determine how much work we do in the scrimmage and what that’s going to look like. I’ve got to see from these guys what we saw today. I thought the effort and the urgency, those were what they needed to be. That needs to continue so we can have a really good scrimmage.

“Then we want to be very specific what we want to get out of that. We’re still a ways away from playing. As we get closer that live work and really getting dialed into tackling and breaking tackles is what you want to make sure you’re focused on.”

Auburn will continue preseason practice Wednesday morning.