Scrimmage Intel:

The scrimmage was “thud”, not full tackling.

The EDGE player look good. In particular, Romello Height has great quickness.

Jarquez Hunter did not participate.

Shaun Shivers and Donovan Kaufman were the first-team kick returners.

Nehemiah Pritchett and Ladarrius Tennison were the second team kickoff returners.

The scrimmage began with 2’s versus 2’s.

There was constant artificial crowd noise pumped into Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Kaufman was the first team nickel, with Smoke Monday and Zion Puckett at safety. Kaufman later comes out when Chandler Wooten comes in as the extra linebacker. That’s something we talked about on The Corner, the nickel and extra linebacker rotation.

Kaufman also played safety, and Tennison moved to nickel. When Tennison left the field, Cam Riley came onto the field at linebacker.

Bo Nix completed a 41-yards skinny post on third down early in the scrimmage. Nix hit another 30-yarder on third down, completing a double move to Ze’Vian Capers over Pritchett. It was a well-timed throw and a great catch.

There were a “lot” of false start penalties early in the scrimmage.

Shivers scored a touchdown a few players later from one yard out.

The first two drives for TJ Finley were three-and-outs. Finley missed a corner route to Tar’Varish Dawson. Finley had another drive that went to third-and-one, and the first team defense stopped the second team offense on third and fourth downs, with Zakoby McClain making a big stop against walk-on back Sean Jackson.

Nix keeps the sticks moving on third-and-three, but follows that up with an interception by Jaylin Simpson. Nix escaped to his right and threw it up for grabs. It wasn’t a good decision.

Pritchett notches an interception due to miscommunication between Nix and a wideout. The wideout stopped the route and Nix threw deep.

Later on, Nix overthrew Luke Deal on a wide open attempt from the pocket. He was then sacked by Colby Wooden. The defense really had the offense’s number tonight.

Dematrius Davis entered the game with the third team offense against the third team defense. Davis looked good on zone-read plays and outruns the EDGE to the corner, moving the chains on a scramble. Davis then threw a beautiful deep fade to the corner from 30 yards out. There was pass interference on the defense.

Davis is stepping into and through the pocket to scramble, where Nix bails to his right. (I saw Davis do the same thing during 11-on-11 work the other day. He stepped up and through the pocket. It’s instincts.) Davis then threw a 21-yard touchdown to Jackson Billings.

Per one insider, Davis “outperformed” Finley by a “wide margin”. Davis had another great pass to Landen King that was dropped.

Then the scrimmage shifted to working from the 25-yard line in.

Finley came back and threw a touchdown to Elijah Canion from 25 yards out. Canion beat backup corner Devin Guice.

Nix came in against the first team defense and the offense ran four straight play action plays. The defense covered them all up, including a sack by Wooden.

Sean Jackson had some nice runs, breaking a few tackles, including an attempt by J.J. Pegues in the backfield.

Pegues flashed with some plays in the backfield. (Like we talked about on the podcast, he’s going to make some “wow” plays even before the light completely comes on at defensive tackle.)

Finley doesn’t appear to be as good when the play breaks down as Nix or Davis.

Zakoby McClain is a “baller”, including a takedown of Tank Bigsby in the backfield.

The secondary looked solid. There are athletes everywhere. The EDGE players all played well.

Jordon Ingram with a 24-yard touchdown run on a great cut 10 yards downfield. It was second team offense against third team defense.

Takeaways
If the defensive front can hold up against the run, they will be very good. The secondary is talented and performed well. The EDGE and linebackers are explosive as well. If Auburn can play good first and second down rush defense, they’ll be in business.

Dematrius Davis watched his stock rise tonight. He’s calm and “legit”, one sources said. TJ Finley wasn’t bad either. Bo Nix didn’t have the kind of night he probably would have hoped.

In Nix’s defense, there’s still too much pressure coming through the offensive line. He’s still improving, but the pressure being allowed from the offensive line has to be dealt with.

Zion Puckett is a player we haven’t talked about much, but he will have a role. He’s big and runs smoothly. Oddly enough, Bydarrius Knighten and Dreshun Miller didn’t get mentioned much as standing out.

The offense is still mostly shotgun, with under center coming in short yardage.

The Harsin-Bobo offense will feature lots of pre-snap motion and shifts. Think back to Al Borges in 2004.

The receivers will be fine. If there’s time to throw, they can make plays.

Sean Jackson, the walk-on back, may be ahead of Jordon Ingram. We aren’t sure where Jarquez Hunter was, but Jackson is a load.

The offensive line, like I mentioned the other day, needs to find the starting five and start giving them reps together as a unit. The cross-training is fine, but that group needs reps as a unit ASAP.

Under the radar guys to keep watching out for our Romello Height, Eku Leota, Puckett and TD Moultry.

This post was edited on 8/14/21 at 11:46 pm