Auburn’s offense took a major hit during the off week as Gus Malzahn announced Tuesday evening that starting running back Boobee Whitlow had surgery for a knee injury.

Whitlow suffered the injury late in the game against Florida, and he underwent a procedure to fix the damage Tuesday. He’ll be out 4-6 weeks, Malzahn said.

This is obviously a major blow to Auburn’s offense, as he’ll be out for the foreseeable future.

The Auburn back is second in the SEC with 544 rushing yards through six games. He leads the SEC with seven rushing touchdowns. Auburn’s second leading rusher is quarterback Bo Nix with 191 yards.

Running backs Kam Martin and Shaun Shivers will certainly see more playing time now. It wouldn’t surprise us to see backup quarterback Joey Gatewood play a little more to help get the running game going, too. Martin has rushed for 174 yards and two touchdowns, while Shivers has rushed for 144 yards. Gatewood has rushed for 122 yards on 22 attempts.

Auburn’s offense is searching for answers after a poor performance against the Gators Saturday. The running and passing game sputtered, and losing Whitlow for an extended period of time is really unfortunate.

The Tigers return to play October 19 against Arkansas.