AUBURN | Look like Drago and break the school sack record are just a couple of the goals Nick Coe has for his junior season.

Auburn’s fourth-year junior has certainly set the bar high, perhaps too high if he’s expecting to transform himself into a clone of Romanian boxer and actor Florian ‘Big Nasty’ Munteanu, who plays Drago in the latest series of Rocky movies.

“My upcoming year, I've got goals. I watched the movie Creed 2. I saw Drago, and I was like, 'I've got to get big like that right there,’” Coe said.

“My goal is to get the sack record here. That's my goal,” he added. “In high school, in my junior year, I had 19 sacks. That's fun. So after that, I wanted to get the sack record at Auburn. That's my plan as an individual. I plan on improving my pass rush and everything with that.”

Coe led the Tigers with 7.0 sacks last season to up his career total to 9.0. He’s not in danger of catching Quentin Groves or Gerald Robinson, who are tied atop AU’s career list with 26.0 sacks — at least this year — but he could challenge Nick Fairley’s single-season record of 11.5 sacks set during the 2010 national championship season.

Coe has plans to be a much better pass rusher when the Tigers open the season against Oregon Aug. 31.

“I would like to improve my long arm, my footwork and reading the offensive tackle,” he said. “For me, it's not hard to read them at all. But it's, like, when they do it with their hands — when I time my stuff up. It's more about timing and then doing the actual technique.”

Coe said one of the biggest reasons he passed up on entering the NFL Draft this spring was to improve his draft status with a strong season this fall. He also has an important goal to accomplish off the field.

“There's so much I need to do. And I want to get my degree. That's my first priority,” Coe said. “After I get my degree and everything — after focusing on school and football — I want to go to the NFL. I love football. That's something I would love to do, go to the NFL and show out and be on TV and everything.

And there’s another big reason he wanted to return.

“When I had to decided to stay or go, I still want to win a national championship. That was still one of my goals,” he said. “I have two more years left here. So I was like, one of these years, I have to win one. I want to achieve that goal really, really badly.”

Spring practice begins March 18. Coe will be limited during spring as he returns from the dislocated wrist he suffered against Georgia and subsequent surgery.