Whether it’s rolling Toomer’s Corner or cranking out 1,000-yard rushers, there are a few things that we expect to see every fall at Auburn.

The latter has been a constant since 2009, which marked the first season that Gus Malzahn arrived at Auburn. Even though he was the offensive coordinator for those first 3 seasons, he started the Tigers’ 1,000-yard rusher trend.

In fact, the Tigers hold the SEC’s longest active streak of 1,000-yard rushers. Nine consecutive seasons, we saw at least one Auburn player hit quadruple digits. The second-longest active streak in the SEC belongs to LSU, which has only had a 1,000-yard rusher in the past 5 seasons. So yeah, it’s an impressive feat.

Auburn (9), LSU (5) and Georgia (4) have the longest active streaks of producing a 1,000-yard rusher in a season.

Real quick fun little story about that. The lone year that Malzahn wasn’t at Auburn during that streak — he was the head coach at Arkansas State in 2012 — was when Auburn had that disastrous 3-9 season (0-8 in SEC). At the end of a 49-0 blowout loss in the Iron Bowl to finish the season, Alabama decided to kneel on fourth down and turn the ball over to Auburn with 11 seconds left. The Tigers brought in Tre Mason for the last play and he picked up 5 yards.

How many rushing yards on the season did that give him? Amazingly, 1,002.

But yes, the streak survived that Malzahn-less season, and it’s still going strong today. With the exception of Mason, it’s been a new player who accomplished that feat every year. With Kerryon Johnson and Kam Pettway off to the NFL, we know that if the streak hits a decade, it’ll once again be a new player joining the club.

The question is, who in the world is that going to be?

Credit: Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports

There’s a chance that we see Auburn roll out some sort of committee. You’ll certainly hear the coaching staff preach the importance of having several capable backs, which makes sense.

Still, though, this 1,000-yard rushing stat isn’t a coincidence. Malzahn’s system needs at least one bell-cow back. In the 8 years that Malzahn has been on the Auburn sidelines, the team’s leading rusher averaged 265 carries per season. Only 11 FBS players surpassed that total in 2017.

It’s clear that with Johnson and Pettway gone, someone is in line for 200-plus carries. The obvious candidate for that is Kam Martin. Auburn running backs coach Tim Horton gave the early nod to him following spring ball.

“If we were to play today it would be Kam Martin,” Horton said a couple weeks ago via AL.com. “He would be the first one to go out on the field. Obviously we don’t play today and so is he going to start against Washington? That kinda remains to be seen but Kam would be first-team if we played today.”

Why wouldn’t Martin be the favorite? After all, he was the team’s second-leading rusher last year with 453 yards on 6.1 yards per carry. Including some limited action as a freshman in 2016, Martin averaged 6.6 yards per carry in 2 seasons.

Even though he missed the spring game with a minor hamstring injury (who didn’t miss Auburn’s spring game with an injury?), Martin could easily be that guy. He’s exceptionally fast, he understands the system and he can catch passes out of the backfield. So what’s not to like?

Well, there aren’t a lot of 250-carry backs who weigh 182 pounds. And in the postseason when Johnson was banged up and Pettway was out, Martin only got a combined 10 carries in the SEC Championship and Peach Bowl. In other words, there’s not some massive gap between he and Auburn’s other options, which there are plenty of.

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One of those guys is promising sophomore Devan Barrett. He’s an interesting option because he has versatility. In fact, he has so much versatility that Auburn rotated him at receiver during the spring. But at just 185 pounds, he might not be that 20-carry guy, either.

So who’s someone with some size who could handle that kind of workload? JaTarvious Whitlow might be the dark horse in the field to emerge. The redshirt freshman isn’t lacking in size at 215 pounds and Malzahn said he has a “unique ability” as a human highlight reel. But consistency is still an issue and obviously the former dual-threat quarterback lacks experience at the tailback position, which is pretty important in Malzahn’s system.

If you just watched the spring game, you might think that C.J. Tolbert could be the workhorse back that Auburn needs. The walk-on was the A-Day MVP with 137 rushing yards and the lone pair of touchdowns scored. Another former high school quarterback, Tolbert certainly took advantage of a prime opportunity in the spring game. But would Malzahn really turn to a 187-pound walk-on to be his featured back to start the season? I’d assume he wouldn’t.

Then there’s Asa Martin. The early enrollee impressed the coaching staff in spring with his ability to pick up the offense. The former Mr. Football in Alabama got reps with the first- and second-team offense at A-Day (he had 64 rushing yards), and at 200 pounds, he could be the complete package that Horton, Malzahn and offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey are looking for. Martin’s ability to develop as a pass protector could be the difference in whether he wins the job.

Add in 225-pound Malik Miller, who has the most bruising style of the bunch, and it’s no wonder why Auburn doesn’t have much clarity on the running back pecking order yet. They had hoped to narrow it down to a couple of candidates, and now it appears that 5-6 are in the mix.

To me, that suggests that Malzahn could go with Martin to start the year and use those September games against Alabama State and Southern Miss (maybe even Arkansas) to see if a hot hand emerges. The good thing is that while there’s perhaps more uncertainty at the position than there’s been in recent memory, the options are there if Martin can’t handle the workload.

This could wind up being more of a committee than we’ve typically seen in the Malzahn era, but I’d still bank on someone getting 200 carries and emerging as a true RB1. I’d bet on the streak to continue, though it could be a struggle to get there. I’ll double down on that bet with another prediction.

I’ll say it happens without the aid of a last-second garbage time run in a 49-0 Iron Bowl loss.