AUBURN | It’s no secret that Auburn struggled at the offensive tackle position last fall.

Injuries and inexperience played a part, certainly, and there’s also the question of if the Tigers have enough talent on the current roster to man both positions and be able to compete with the best teams in the SEC.

First-year head coach Bryan Harsin will start answering that question this spring and it starts with finding AU’s best five offensive linemen.

“I think we have some guys — we got guys that can help us,” Harsin said. “Really, with the O-line, you try to look at your best five, right? We’re not at our best five right now. We’re going to see with the amount of players we have at the O-line position go out and do our individual drills and put them through all the — what tackles will do, what guards will do, then you have your center position is a little bit different.”

Auburn has 15 scholarship offensive linemen on its spring roster including all five that started at least one game at left or right tackle. Another tackle, 2021 signee Colby Smith, will join the team this summer.

The numbers are certainly there for AU to have a spirited competition this spring and fall. But the key will be finding players capable of slotting in at the tackle position, which usually requires extra length and quickness to deal with edge pass rushers.

Senior Alec Jackson returns after starting eight of 11 games last fall at left tackle as does senior Brodarious Hamm, who started eight games at right tackle. Senior Austin Troxell started three games at left tackle and the bowl game at right tackle while senior Brendan Coffey started one game at right tackle.

Senior Brandon Council, who will miss this spring recovering from an injury, started four games at right guard and another at right tackle before injuring his knee at Ole Miss Oct. 24.

Other possibilities at the tackle position include junior Kilian Zierer, who missed last season recovering from a knee injury after signing out of junior college, true freshman Garner Langlo, who enrolled in January, and senior Prince Michael Sammons, who has missed most of the last two seasons with injuries.

“All those players, you look at that tackle position and who’s got the length to play tackle, alright, but at the same time, we just got to see these guys get out there and get on our board and get some one-on-ones going, and get off the ball and strike, and then we’ll start to move around and kind of play with the first five guys in there and how that looks and start to work with our depth that we do have,” said Harsin

Langlo and Smith are the first two tackles Auburn has signed out of high school since 2017. On the current roster, 11 of the 15 offensive linemen are juniors and seniors and most of the seniors have another year of eligibility left due to the COVID pandemic.

Auburn, however, may have to hit up the transfer portal if they don’t feel like they have the personnel to man both tackle positions while also making high school offensive linemen, particularly tackles. a priority in recruiting.

“We do have to continue to keep recruiting the O-line,” Harsin said. “That, even regardless of what it looks like coming out of spring and where we are, we got to continue to keep developing our O-line, we got to continue to keep recruiting our O-line and create some separation, just in years.

“We’ve got some guys in that junior class that are stacked up, so we’re deep in the junior class, but we got to create some separation in there and some future development just at the O-line position, and the tackle position in particular is an area we got to stay focused on in recruiting.”

Auburn will hold its second spring practice Wednesday afternoon. Thursday will be Pro Day and the team will practice again Friday and Saturday.