AUBURN | Despite returning eight players with starting experience including seven seniors, Auburn’s offensive line is not receiving a lot of preseason hype.
Athlon’s ranked the Tigers’ offensive line 10th in the conference while the SEC Network’s Cole Cubelic didn’t include the group among his top five SEC O-lines.
Nick Brahms, who has started 21 career games at center, knows AU’s offensive line isn’t considered a team strength, at least from outside the program.
“First of all, I think the guys in the room, we know what we’ve done and how much work we’ve put in in the springtime and summertime,” Brahms said. “I think a lot of people don’t realize that. We work hard all year long for these kinds of opportunities to play football in the fall.
“We try to block out the noise. We don’t really listen to people because at the end of the day we’re the ones on the field and we’re the ones blocking people. We’ll just do that to the best of our ability and get the job done anyway we can. That’s our mindset. We’re going to be tough guys and lead this football team.”
Brahms will be playing under his fourth offensive line coach in five years after SEC veteran Will Friend was hired by first-year head coach Bryan Harsin. Friend, who spent the previous three seasons at Tennessee and was at Georgia from 2011-14, has already made a big impression on his new players.
“Coach Friend, I think he’s a great coach,” Brahms said. “He’s a teacher first and he’s going to make sure you know what to do and how to do it. He’s a good motivator as well. He’s going to get us going. When we’re not performing up to standard or something, he’s gonna move it along and motivate us.”
Brahms was selected by the media as first-team All-SEC a couple of weeks ago. He appreciates the honor but individual awards are not something the 2020 aviation graduate is concentrating on.
“Right now, I’m focused on winning,” Brahms said. “We want to win every game and we’ve got a chance to do that. We’re going to put in the work now. We put in the work in the summertime. I think we had a good summer. So we’re looking to build off that this fall camp and into the season. Every week we want to get better. That’s our plan, that’s our goal and we’re going to accomplish that.”
