Auburn Tigers Suffer Injury Blow, Lose WR for Season

The Auburn Tigers suffered a setback in their wide receiver room after losing one of their key players for the season.

Auburn Tigers wide receiver Horatio Fields is third on the team in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. | Chris Jones-Imagn Images

AUBURN, Ala.-- As the Auburn Tigers look to rebound from last week's loss to Oklahoma, they will have to do it without a main offensive contributor.

Receiver Horatio Fields suffered a broken foot on Tuesday and will undergo season-ending surgery, head coach Hugh Freeze on Wednesday during his portion of the SEC Coaches Teleconference.

“Unfortunately he broke his foot. He'll have to have surgery tomorrow, and that’s a huge loss for us,” Freeze said. “He was kind of the leader of that receiver room, who knew every position and gave us flexibility to do a lot of things. A difficult loss.”

Fields is in his first season with Auburn after spending four seasons at Wake Forest. He is currently third on the team in receptions (12), yards (106) and receiving touchdowns (one). He previously accounted for 44 receptions for 517 yards and four touchdowns in his time with the Demon Deacons, which included a redshirt season in 2021.

Since Fields already redshirted, he is not eligible for a traditional redshirt season despite only playing in four games this season. However, a possible medical hardship waiver for another season of eligibility is something that has been done by players around the country.

In Fields' place, the Tigers will have to rely even more on transfer Eric Singleton Jr., who leads the team with 22 catches for 209 yards, and sophomore Cam Coleman, who leads the team with 237 yards on only 12 catches.

Singleton Jr. and Coleman have combined for four of Jackson Arnold's five touchdown passes this season.

Malcolm Simmons (nine catches for 93 yards) will have a larger role going forward, as well as Perry Thompson, who Freeze specifically pointed out as the next man up in Auburn's four-receiver rotation.

"It's his time to show he's ready and to earn it," Freeze said of Thompson.

Auburn will be relying on the new trio to help Arnold with plays down the field, something the Tigers have struggled to do through four games.

"People can criticize, and they’re going to, whether I throw it downfield or I don’t run it enough. The criticism is coming; it doesn't matter," Freeze said on Monday. "I always knew we could. Just like there are things we saw Saturday from the Oklahoma defense we haven’t seen in the three games, and things people haven’t seen in us in three games. I was very confident that we could push the ball down the field, and it is good to see them do that and have success. The crazy thing is that we should have hit two more that I think changed the game. You have to make those plays."

Auburn will release its first injury report of the week on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. CT before travelling to No. 9 Texas A&M on Saturday with kickoff set for 2:30 p.m. CT on ESPN.