SELMA | Returning as secondary coach two years after leaving to serve as the Ole Miss defensive coordinator, Wesley McGriff already had a working knowledge of Auburn’s veteran defensive backs.

But he didn’t know a lot about the underclassmen. One, in particular, really caught his eye this spring.

“Roger McCreary is going to do some things to probably put himself in position to help us this year and have an impact,” McGriff said. “It was good to see him develop. He’s a guy that I thought got better everyday."

McGriff said it’s McCreary’s work ethic that sets him apart from a lot of young players.

“That’s the one thing about Auburn football, those guys come in and know they’re going to have to work and they don’t mind working,” he said. “You look at Roger, he’s the same guy everyday. He comes and he’s going to give you 110 percent and he gives you a lot of things to coach. And that’s what you want in a player.”

Another second-year defensive back that caught McGriff’s eye this spring was sophomore safety Jamien Sherwood, who was a key backup at safety last fall.

“Sherwood, you look at Sherwood — I recruited him a little bit out of high school — and just watch his development,” McGriff said. “Every single day, man, this guy is on task to come in and watch video and their bodies are changing. I just like to see where those guys are developing mentally and a lot of guys are doing that.”

McCreary worked as cornerback this spring while Sherwood was at safety. But McGriff doesn’t want to pigeonhole any of the defensive backs going into the fall.

“If you look at football today and y’all watch a lot of it, of course, is that you’ve got to have your best four guys, sometimes five guys, sometimes six guys on the backend on the field,” McGriff explained. “We tell all of them in the meeting room — that’s why it’s so critical to have them all of them here together — is that you’re not a corner, you’re not a safety, you’re a defensive back. And we have to coach to that because we don’t want to get into a game and you put a guy in but your best guy is over there because you’re saying he’s just a corner. No, you’re a defense back, let’s go win this game.”