Auburn’s scrimmage reveals ‘plenty’ to work on

With gray clouds looming and a strong breeze dancing through Jordan-Hare Stadium, the Auburn football team finally put all the new techniques and schemes they’ve learned into practice Thursday with the first scrimmage of the Bryan Harsin era.

“Had an opportunity to go out there and tackle and break tackles and work on some of those things that we’ve been spending time on in practice and ultimately just having a chance to compete, which was good to see,” coach Harsin said.

The three main things Harsin said he wanted to see out of this first scrimmage was the communication, operation and execution from the players and the coaches, from the booth to the sideline. This first time around, Harsin was pleased with the energy.

When it came to how the team actually competed, Harsin said there were some good things as well as “plenty” to work on. He specified that all three phases, “including special teams,” can improve. The special teams did not go live Thursday.

“Now, at this point, with our preparation, how far have we come as a staff with our players?” Harsin said. “And are we doing a good enough job of getting these guys ready to out there and execute in a moment like we had today. And, first glance of that, we’ve got a ways to go. We’ve got things we know we need to work on, and that’s ok.”

There wasn’t a specific goal of how far along Harsin and the coaches wanted to be by this first scrimmage. The key now is that they want to take the film from Thursday and evaluate during the week of rest so that they know what they need to focus on in the final two weeks of spring practice. The evaluation is also key for them to see what they’ll take into summer and then into fall camp.

From here, the team will take a break. Since Auburn doesn’t have spring break this year, just “wellness days,” Harsin wanted the team to have a chance to rest or catch up on whatever they need to.

“I think it’s a welcome week for them to just got and finish up some things they had to do personally, get their families here, take care of their families, take care of some personal things, whatever it is,” Harsin said. “Some of us get a haircut, whatever it might be.”

Auburn will return to practice the week of April 4. A-Day will be April 17 at 1 p.m.

Here are photos of the players and coaches from the open portion of Thursday’s practice: