AUBURN | Don’t expect a depth chart for Auburn’s offensive line anytime soon.

That likely goes for the rest of the team that opened up spring practice Monday with 21 new players.

“We talked about it yesterday and we talked about it all winter with our team: There's no depth chart,” said offensive line coach Jake Thornton. “It's a competition everyday, and if you feel entitled to a spot, you're wrong.

“And on the other side of that, if you look at yourself, ‘Well, I'm just the third string right guard.' You're wrong. Go compete.”

Thornton presides over one of the Tigers’ most competitive position groups. There are no clear returning starters on the O-line, which includes seven newcomers: transfers Gunner Britton, Dillon Wade and Avery Jones, junior college signee Izavion Miller and three high school signees.

He'll be working with a total of 14 scholarship linemen this spring including four that return with at least one career start in Tate Johnson, Kameron Stutts, Jeremiah Wright and Jalil Irvin.

“We have a lot of new faces, but for me, all of them are new,” said Thornton, who was hired away from Ole Miss Dec. 22. “I tried to do the best I could go into it of knowing strength and weaknesses and watching the guys over the winter, conditioning and stuff, and kind of figuring out what they were good at and not so good at, what we needed to work on, improve.

“Kind of had an idea going into the practice of what it was. But it was fun to watch those guys in a working environment. A lot of new faces and a lot of guys playing next to each other that have never played next to each other before. And I thought for that part of it, it was a pretty smooth transition for a lot of those guys.”

Thornton prefers to work his offensive linemen at several different positions and will do so this spring.

“If they want to play in the National Football League, unless you're the $40 million first round left tackle, you need to know how to play all five of them,” he said. “That's something that I did at my previous place. I try to teach those guys every position because if they're the starting left guard, they've got to know what the center is doing every play and what the tackle is doing every play. To know their footwork, they can seam their process together.

“There will be guys that get reps at multiple positions for their own personal development and, ultimately, whatever is best for our football team and our organization.”

Thornton still has 14 practices remaining this spring, a full summer and preseason drills to get his offensive line SEC ready.

He certainly knows what it will take to excel in this league. In addition to two years as offensive line coach at Ole Miss, he was a graduate assistant at Alabama in 2017.

“To do it at a place like Auburn is something that I've always wanted to come and do,” Thornton said. “As far as the pressure, this is the SEC. So any situation, any team, any game — everything is pressure-filled. But that's why we as competitors do that, and that's why we accept these challenges.

“I'm excited about it. I couldn't ask for a better group as far as work ethic, and they want to be good. They want to rewrite the script, flip the script, as Coach Freeze has been talking about. So I'm excited to keep it going and see where it leads us.”

Auburn will hold its second practice of spring Wednesday afternoon.