Riddick ‘ready for the moment’

AUBURN | Auburn struggled to contain athletic quarterbacks through the first four games.

They found a solution in a freshman in Week 5.

Demarcus Riddick, seeing his most significant playing time of the season, led the Tigers with six tackles against Oklahoma. He added a tackle-for-loss, his first-career sack and pass breakup in 23 snaps.

“He a dog. He a dog, man,” said senior linebacker Jalen McLeod. “He was ready for the moment. He seized the opportunity they gave him. I kept telling him, ‘I’m proud of you. You’re a true freshman. You come in and play against this top 25 team and you’re playing your heart out. Keep playing like that.’

“And, you know, he kept playing like that and I’m proud of him.”

Riddick had several stops against OU quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr., who had 69 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries. Forty-eight of those yards came on a touchdown run on the Sooner’s opening drive with Riddick watching on the sidelines.

“He doesn’t know half of what to do, really with every call right now. But when you're an athlete, you're an athlete. He runs a very, very fast quarterback down on several occasions,” said AU coach Hugh Freeze.

Riddick was one of four Auburn true freshmen to make a significant impact on defense. Both defensive tackle Malik Blocton and cornerback Jay Crawford started their first-career games.

Crawford played all 54 snaps on defense and wasn’t targeted in 15 pass attempts while Blocton finished third among AU’s defensive linemen with a 68.0 run defense grade on 16 snaps according to PFF.

Kaleb Harris played 35 snaps as a backup safety and was AU’s highest-rated defender with a 79.1 defensive grade. He was credited with four tackles and one pass breakup.

“You start to see that we're recruiting kids that can make a difference, that can run and that can tackle them,” said Freeze. “And that's the type of recruiting we got to have, and that we are doing, and going to add to us, hopefully very soon.”

Auburn plays at No. 5 Georgia Saturday. Kickoff at Sanford Stadium is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. CT on ABC.