Auburn is reaching the end of the first two weeks of spring practice under Bryan Harsin. The team held a scrimmage inside Jordan-Hare on Thursday for the first time this spring.
The Tigers have now gone through six practices and, according to Harsin, still have work to do.
“Now, at this point, with our preparation, how far have we come as a staff with our players? And are we doing a good enough job of getting these guys ready to out there and execute in a moment like we had today? And, at first glance of that, we've got a ways to go,” Harsin said. “We've got things we know we need to work on, and that's ok. As long as we take that mindset into what we have to do moving forward, then we'll have a chance to continue to get better.”
Thursday’s scrimmage was used more so as an opportunity for the new staff to “operate” getting plays to the offense and defense, and see if they could “execute.”
“It is simply about who can operate and execute,” Harsin said about Thursday’s practice. “And we saw guys who can do that today, and we saw guys who need work. And that work comes from the preparation they have to be doing in order to operate and execute. The one thing about scrimmages, or games or live work is you get a chance to see how far guys have really come in their preparation. How that applies to practice. How practice applies to scrimmages or live situations and then when you go live, it really doesn’t lie.”
While Harsin does believe the team still has a lot of work to do, he and the staff were able to see players step up and compete on Thursday.
In that aspect, Harsin was pleased.
“Guys were competing. Guys did play hard. Guys showed effort,” Harsin said. “Now it’s about how do we clean some of the details up and then, where are we?”
From a player standpoint, there wasn’t anyone in particular that stood out to Harsin during the scrimmage as a leader. Harsin said the players were mostly focused on making sure they were in the right spots and doing their jobs properly.
The team will have next week off from practice — something usually lined up with spring break, which Auburn University doesn’t have this year — and will return for the last two weeks of practice afterward.
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