Auburn Daily

The national media is sleeping on Auburn football's running back room

This is why Auburn's running back room is one of the best in the country.
Andrew Stefaniak|
The national media is sleeping on Auburn football's running back room
The national media is sleeping on Auburn football's running back room

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Auburn Tigers

On3 Sports posted a graphic that ranked the top five running back rooms in the SEC. This list did not include the Auburn Tigers and their dynamic backfield of Tank Bigsby and Jarquez Hunter. 

In the piece at On3 Sports, Auburn was considered an honorable mention on this list, with the author saying the Tigers just missed the cut. The five teams were Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Ole Miss.

The argument can be made that Auburn has the best backfield in the SEC because both of their two primary rushers have proven that they can put up great numbers in the SEC. 

ESPN ranked their 50 best SEC rushers from a season, and Bigsby was fourth on this list, with Hunter being 19th. Of the five schools on this list, not one team has two returning rushers in the top 20. 

The Auburn offensive line is one of the issues that led to some struggles in the run game a season ago, but these guys have another season under their belt, so the hope is that they will improve this year.

Many of the running backs for these five schools are either young and unproven in the SEC or transfers. 

There are some outstanding running backs that play for the schools on this list, like Jahmyr Gibbs from Alabama, Chris Rodriguez Jr. from Kentucky, Devon Achane from Texas A&M, and Zach Evans from Ole Miss. Those four guys are studs and will make a lot of money playing on Sundays down the road. 

While all of these guys will have great years for their respective schools, the depth behind them is either unproven or not there. 

On Pro Football Focus's running back grades for the SEC, Bigsby had the tenth best grade in 2021, and Hunter had the 18th best grade. This is another stat highlighting that Auburn has two workhorse running backs with plenty of SEC experience. 

The only real knock on Auburn's running game would be that Bigsby only averaged 4.9 yards per carry a season ago. But a nice way to combat that is with Hunter's 6.7 yards per carry a season ago that had him only behind Achane from A&M. 

To go on top of all this information is that fact that the Tigers added talented running back Damari Alston in their 2022 recruiting class. He is unproven but will be the Tiger's third-string back, assuming he beats out Sean Jackson. He has a ton of upside and could be effective on the field this season if the team needed him. 

So if the discussion is about whether or not Auburn's running back room is top five in the SEC, that is a definitive yes. 

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Andrew Stefaniak
ANDREW STEFANIAK

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