Gus Malzahn was not alone at SEC Media Days as Jarrett Stidham, Deshaun Davis and Dontavius Russell helped their coach represent Auburn in Atlanta for the media event.
Here are some highlights of the quotes provided by the players on the Auburn roster:
Junior quarterback Jarrett Stidham
On year two with the offense…
“I think it’s going to be really good for us this year. Obviously, like you said, at the beginning of the year last year, we started slow, kind of sluggish. We were still trying to kind of figure out what we were going to be best at. I was trying to figure out Coach Lindsey. Him and Coach Malzahn were trying to figure out who I was as a player. Throughout the season, we kind of saw a progression week to week. This summer has obviously been really big for us. We have a lot of guys coming back, especially at the skills positions. We’re going to be hitting on close to all cylinders, more so at the beginning of the season rather than waiting till halfway or the end of the season.”
On the LSU game last year…
“Anytime you’re up 20 points on the road in Death Valley, you’re feeling pretty good. All of a sudden, it turned the wrong way. I think they scored 23 unanswered points. It’s a tough game to swallow. I don’t think we would have been in position at the end of the season if we hadn’t lost that game. From a leadership standpoint, we got together after the game, and we kind of had to turn around the season because that was the lowest of the lows for us as a team. All the players, coaching staff, support staff, it was a pretty low point in the locker room after that game. The next day, we came to work, watched the film, got better, and we just got on a run from that game on. I try not to look at it from a negative aspect. I try to look at it from a positive standpoint and what we learned from that game. Like I said, I don’t think we would have been in the position to play in the SEC Championship without losing that game.”
On his year off from football…
“It’s kind of surreal. I said it after the Iron Bowl last year, at that point last year, I was sitting on a couch watching the game, not practicing, working out on my own. I’ve come a long way. I think that year, even though sometimes you don’t appreciate what you have until you don’t have it. That’s kind of what football meant to me at that moment. I just appreciated it a little bit more and how blessed I am to be able to play the great game of football. It was just a humbling experience to have to go through something like that. I don’t know of anybody that’s just had to take a year off, workout on their own. It was a very humbling experience. It is pretty surreal just to look back and see how far I’ve come.”
Senior linebacker Deshaun Davis
On the LSU loss…
“That was a really tough loss, I think at that time, it was the worst loss that I felt, going in and knowing what was at stake and winning at LSU for a long time. I think that made us into who we were. We faced diversity after that game. We came back into that team room, and the first thing coach said was, ‘We still have a chance.’ Our goal was to get to the SEC Championship and playoffs.”
On the Auburn defense…
“We know we can be pretty good. We don’t know if we will be worse than last year’s defense or if we will be better. Cause right now, it is all paper talk. No matter if they say we are going to be good or we are going to be bad, at the end of the day when it comes down to it, we have to step on the field and make plays.”
On the pride in the linebacker position…
“Me personally, I take a lot of pride being an Auburn linebacker. I embrace every moment and every game, because I know for me, at one point in time, I was not on the field. I missed three consecutive years of football at one point, which started at my senior year of high school because of an injury. So I never take a snap for granted. That’s why every time we make a play, I celebrate.”
Senior defensive lineman Dontavius Russell
On expectations for this year and if they can win it all…
“We are in a position where we have a lot of people coming back, and I think that puts us in a position to compete with the teams we play throughout the season. Especially with where we are now, the season hasn’t started yet, so we aren’t thinking that far ahead.”
On playing LSU at home this year…
“The past couple of years, we’ve gone back and forth between the two. It’s almost like whoever is playing at home wins the game. There have been some good games. There’s always something to watch, and I always look forward to playing them.”
On if he feels like the defensive line is overlooked…
“No, I don’t think so. I feel like we get enough recognition as it is. I feel like being acknowledged as underrated is acknowledgement enough.”
On having a deep defensive line group…
“I’m always going to give it my all, but that’s exactly how I feel. You don’t have to worry about the situation where it’s coming out of the game because of the caliber of talent we have. We can rotate down and in and down and out, and not have to worry about it. We are in a good spot.”
On South Carolina Head Coach Will Muschamp and his time at Auburn…
“Coach Muschamp was a guy that recruited me coming out of high school to Florida. I was excited to come to Auburn, but I was happy when he got there. He brought a lot of energy to our team. He was the guy that started turning us into a good defense, which we became the year after he left. He got a lot of things rolling that we needed, and I appreciate him for that.”
On playing Washington to begin the season…
“That’s something that we do at Auburn frequently. For the past four years or so, we’ve played big games at the beginning of the season. My first year, we played Louisville in Lamar Jackson’s first year, and we played Clemson the past two years early in the season. It’s one of those things that we are kind of used to, but we still have to acknowledge the fact that they are a high caliber opponent.”
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
