Tough as nails

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AUBURN, Ala. | Tough, gritty, leader - just some of the adjectives used to describe Sean White's performance against Ole Miss Saturday.

After missing most of last week's practices with an injured left knee, the redshirt freshman started and threw for a career-high 258 yards.

"He's tough as nails," offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee said. "So far in five games, that's his No. 1 strength in my opinion. He's just tough. He's a competitor. He's gritty. If I were to try to tell him in pregame warmups I didn't think he could go, I think we would have 12 men on the field the first play. He was going to play. He was determined.

"For not having practiced, he did a good job. There were a couple of things normally he would have made different decisions had he gotten the reps throughout the week ― you got to remember he'd only played four games up to that point ― so not to practice in a whole week is a big deal. But he played tough, he gave us a chance, he was gritty."

Auburn didn't practice Sunday but Lashlee is confident White will be back at practice Tuesday and in the starting lineup for next Saturday's game at Texas A&M.

"He's OK. He's not worse off than he was before, so we're optimistic that he'll even be better this week," Lashlee said.

"I'm optimistic. We get pretty much today and tomorrow, about 48 hours to recover. I know Dr. Andrews looked at him after the game and didn't think he was any worse off than before the game."

White completed 12-of-28 passes including his first career touchdown pass, a 47-yard strike to Ricardo Louis. He did throw an interception on a long third-down pass, his first pick in 94 passes and only his second of the season.

"I appreciate him fighting, because I knew he was hurt," Louis said. "All throughout practice, him struggling, he came out (Saturday) and really stood up for us and put us in a position to win. We just couldn't finish."

Even the recruits watching from the stands took notice of White's performance. Calhoun (Ga.) tight end Landon Rice, a long-time Auburn commit, was in town for his official visit.

"That's huge. You want to play for a guy like that as a leader," Rice said. "He was banged up a little bit. He didn't have to go but he went and showed a lot to his teammates that he's got grit and he can work hard and push through the pain."

The decision to play White didn't come until right before kickoff with Lashlee and Gus Malzahn watching him closely during pre-game warmups.

"You know I wasn't 100 percent, but I felt like I was good enough to go for my teammates and play hard and I thought that I did that," White said. "It was just frustrating that it came up short."

Auburn lost to the Rebels 27-19, falling to 4-4 overall and 1-4 in the SEC.

"You want to win, it's extremely frustrating," White said, "but at the same time you have to look at the bright side of things. It's a few plays here and there that makes the difference. We just need to make those plays, you know like in the red zone, whatever plays are there, and that could be the difference in the game."

MORE FROM LASHLEE

On if they were prepared to start and play Jeremy Johnson the entire game…

"Yeah, we were. Again, we didn't know if Sean was going to be able to go until right before kickoff."

On putting Johnson in for the final hail mary…

"Probably a little bit of both. It was mainly because of his knee. Could he extend the play long enough to get it off? He had been playing through it. Everybody knows he was not able to move like he normally would. Jeremy is the guy who can throw it well over 60 yards, so there's some of that to be said about both of those things."

On discussion before 4th down play in 2nd quarter…

"You know, we talked about it a little bit on third down before, but I think Coach had the mindset, 'We're going to be aggressive' and your players, you appreciate that. And again, the play that was called was there. We just have to make the throw and the catch. Big play."

On being 2-of-15 on third downs…

"We had been doing really well until yesterday. We were leading in our league. Particularly, the last three games we had been pretty good. We just weren't very good. We didn't have a lot of third-and-shorts and manageables. We had been in those situations probably a lot more the last few games. It seemed like we had a lot of third-and-seven-pluses. We just didn't get the job done. And then the third downs in the red zone…there were three of those that contribute to the poor numbers. As bad as those three numbers are, if we could have just scored a few touchdowns, we probably would have still won the game. That's really what did us in, third downs in the red zones."

On the trick plays against Ole Miss…

"We have those every game, just some games we don't use them either we don't believe the situation calls for it or we don't feel like we're getting those looks that week that would be good for it. Obviously one worked and one didn't. We usually carry two or three a game regardless. And then with the regards when Jeremy went in, there were a couple plays that were either quarterback-designed runs or quarterback-read runs where it just made no sense because, one, he wasn't full speed and two, why take a chance at taking a hit on that knee any more than you have to and so that was the reason Jeremy was going in on those."

On practicing Jason Smith in the Wildcat…

"Yeah, we have. We've exhausted everything and we feel like Kerryon is doing a good job in the Wildcat. We feel like Jason is feeling comfortable where he's at and getting a good grasp. He's made some good plays over the last few weeks. I wouldn't rule anything out."

On the status of WR Stanton Truitt…

"He's still day to day. Coach will probably have a better update for that for you on Tuesday. But we'll just have to see how he does these next few days."