Baylor football game week: Get to know the Auburn Tigers
It's officially game week for Baylor. The Bears will host Auburn on Friday night at 7 p.m. CT for a massive Week 1 showdown. It will be the fourth time the two teams have met on the football field -- the first since 1976.
Baylor holds a 2-1-1 lead against the Tigers, and the Bears hope to get off to a great start on Friday. It will be a daunting early schedule for Baylor. The Bears will host Auburn, then travel to SMU, a team that made the CFP last season. Then in Week 4, Arizona State comes to Waco for another huge game.
But as of now, all eyes are on the new-look Auburn Tigers. Baylorbears.com released some tidbits about the Auburn Tigers ahead of Friday.
• Auburn is under the direction of third-year head coach Hugh Freeze, who took over after a strong tenure at Liberty from 2019-22, with time as the head coach at Ole Miss from 2012-16.
• Freeze has gone 11-14 over his first two seasons and is assisted by offensive coordinator Derrick Nix and defensive coordinator DJ Durkin. Nix is in his second season after spending the previous 12 years as the running backs coach and wide receivers coach at Ole Miss, including helping spur the Rebels to an 11-2 record in his final season. Durkin is in his second year after serving as the defensive coordinator at Texas A&M for two seasons, two seasons as the linebackers coach at Ole Miss and as a former DC at Michigan and Florida. Durkin was the head coach at Maryland for the 2016-17 seasons. Chad Lunsford serves as the special teams coordinator, his second stint at Auburn (2009-12). Lunsford is a former head coach at Georgia Southern, associate head coach at FAU – including a two-game interim stint.
• The Tigers went 5-7 and 2-6 in the Southeastern Conference a year ago, posting wins over Alabama A&M, New Mexico, Kentucky, ULM and Texas A&M. AU bounced back from a four-game losing streak in the midseason to win three of four games before a 14-point loss to Alabama ended the bowl hopes.
• Auburn ranked No. 71 nationally in offense in each of the first two seasons under Freeze, and is coming off a season where the defense ranked No. 28 nationally in points allowed (21.3), and ninth in fewest yards allowed per rush (3.08). AU averaged 429.4 yards per game, including 263.9 passing and 165.5 rushing. Defensively, AU averaged 330.8 yards per game, allowing 213 passing and 117.8 rushing.
• The Tigers had a great offseason in the transfer portal, adding potential starters in QB Jackson Arnold (Oklahoma), WRs Eric Singleton Jr. (Georgia Tech) and Horatio Fields (Wake Forest), in addition to OL standout Xavier Chaplin (Virginia Tech). Freshman five-star QB Duece Knight leads a strong freshmen class for the Tigers.
• Defensively, the secondary returns Kaleb Harris, Kayin Lee, Sylvester Smith and Champ Anthony and welcomes the Mid-American Conference's top corner in Raion Strader and Tulane transfer Rayshawn Pleasant. Keldrick Falk returns on the defensive line after leading the team in sacks (seven) and ranking second in TFL (11).
• Alex McPherson returns as the leader to win the kicking job, Oklahoma State transfer Hudson Kaak could take over punting and one of the nation's best kickoff returners, Jeremiah Cobb is back in the fold.
• Auburn is led by Athletics Director John Cohen, who took over in the fall of 2022 after a historic run at Mississippi State, where he was a star baseball player and later one of the top college baseball coaches in the nation. Cohen served as the head coach at Kentucky from 2004-08, leading the Wildcats to a historic run that saw the first worst-to-first finish in SEC baseball history. He then took over as the head coach of the Bulldogs, leading MSU to the 2013 CWS finals and titles in the SEC regular season and tournaments. He led the best run in MSU athletics history as its AD following the departure of Scott Stricklin to Florida, highlighted by the first national championship in any team sport in school history, the 2021 baseball title. All told, a total of five MSU programs had the best seasons in school history under his watch as AD.
• Former Georgia Southern AD Jared Benko is the Executive Deputy AD, joining Tim Jackson (fundraising), Djenane Paul (SWA) and Rhett Hobart (external) as Deputy ADs.
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Trent is the Publisher of Baylor Bears on SI and also serves as the Managing Editor for Michigan Wolverines on SI. His work has additionally been featured on Maryland on SI, Wisconsin on SI, and across the USA TODAY Sports network. Trent’s love of sports and being able to tell stories to fans is what made him get into writing.