Deshawn Spencer is catching on fast at Auburn but otherwise fans better be patient

 

 

 

 

AUBURN — On a day when Auburn’s starting quarterback looked like the backup and the backup looked like the starter, the 34,000 fans gathered for Saturday’s A-Day game at Jordan-Hare Stadium needed something or someone inspiring to latch onto after years of disillusionment.

Former Saraland star receiver Deshawn Spencer may have become future Auburn star receiver Deshawn Spencer, who was that something and someone.

The true freshman caught nine passes on 10 targets for 93 yards and was named the offensive MVP of the spring game, which the offense won 66-43 or 30-6, depending on which scoring system you accept.

While Spencer did what he did against the second-team defense, how often does a second-team receiver become the MVP? Afterward, new Tigers coach Alex Golesh didn’t need a crystal ball to foretell what Spencer can provide to a program in dire need of success.

“He’s super intelligent,” Golesh said. “He’s in the right place at the right time. He’s got ball skills. This place means a lot to him and he came in here with an intent to go win a job. He’s competed his tail off.”

Spencer (5-foot-11, 165) — whose development was accelerated in Saraland coach Jeff Kelly’s college-style offense — said the A-Day game gave him a lot of confidence heading into the fall.

“It was a huge thing for me,” he said. “I feel like I had an OK spring. I didn’t feel like I was my best every day, so today was really important to me. I was like, whatever I’ve got to do, I’m going to leave it all out on the line, whether that’s a competitive catch, making a big block, just some type of way to create an explosive play.”

Spencer found the open windows Saturday and was particularly effective on receiver screens, picking up 33 yards after contact.

“He’s slippery,” Golesh said. “He’s got to put some weight on because those hits add up really, really quickly … As he gains some weight and continues to learn this offense and continues to build trust, I think Deshawn’s going to be a really good player.”

Spencer knows he must add some mass — “I’m a little guy right now,” he said — but he has quickly adjusted to the speed of the college game, giving Golesh and the offensive coaches hope he will learn the offense just as briskly.

“I feel like I progressed pretty well,” Spencer said. “When I first got here, I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ I had to adjust my process a little bit. I couldn’t just sit in a meeting and try to understand it. You’ve got to come back, you’ve got to get extra work and it just came together for me. The more I did it, it just came to me and it was easier to understand.”

Although A-Day was a practice game, Spencer found it challenging at first.

“You got balls flying, you got whistles blowing, bigger crowd — way bigger than high school,” he said. “And I tried to tune all those things out. Today was amazing … My coaches and my teammates, my brothers in my room, they push me to be my best every day. When you’ve got great guys like that, it just all comes together and they help you transfer that skill onto the field.”

 

Brown shrugs off struggles

 

Golesh saw other positives.

He felt the running game was good when it got hitched to a faster tempo. He liked the pass protection, although noting that Auburn’s defense was vanilla and yet tested the offense. (“There is nothing that these guys have put in this spring that I wanted out there on any sort of tape,” he said. “The best thing about playing against this defense is it’s going to force you to be elite in the protection world.”)

The program is healing from its self-inflicted wounds, thawing from the Hugh Freeze era and washing away the sins of the Bryan Harsin era. Insiders say Golesh’s first spring was more physical than at any time since the Pat Dye era and faster paced than anything in recent years.

“I think we got schematically what we wanted,” Golesh said. “I think from an intent how to practice, we got what we wanted. There was enough hard that we handled well. There was enough hard that we handled like complete bull crap and we’ve got to do better.”

That would also apply to presumed starting quarterback Byrum Brown, one of 13 players who followed Golesh to the Plains from South Florida. Brown is one of only a dozen FBS quarterbacks to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 in a single season but if one judged from his performance Saturday, it will take him several centuries to reach those heights in the SEC.

Brown (6-foot-3, 232), Auburn’s biggest quarterback since Cam Newton, completed just 7 of 14 passes for 85 yards. He was sacked three times. He threw two interceptions, one of which 6-foot-6 defensive end Jared Smith, the game’s defensive MVP, turned into a 75-yard pick-six.

Brown wore a Go Pro camera on his helmet so the coaches could see what he saw. It certainly wasn’t a highlight reel.

“I didn’t think Byrum saw it great today,” Golesh said. “I thought he was efficient in what he had to do but I didn’t think he saw it great in the middle of the field.”

Golesh also factored in that Brown couldn’t scramble for big gains or to buy more time because the defense was forbidden to hit Brown.

“It’s hard to move around,” Golesh said. “It’s going to be quick whistled every time.”

While it’s not fair to draw conclusions based on a practice game, Brown’s A-Day is going to make Tigers fans fidgety going into the last four months of the offseason.

When the games count, Brown will likely keep plays alive the way Newton did and he didn’t seem concerned afterward.

“It’s hard to get in the rhythm when you are not fully live,” Brown said. “That’s a part of it but I’ll be fine.”

Instead, backup Tristan Ti’a, a redshirt freshman transfer from Oregon State, played much better — completing 15 of 20 passes for 179 yards and a touchdown and running 11 yards for another TD.

“It was good to see Tristan operate,” Golesh said. “He’s had his ups and downs. He’s a baby. He’s highly, highly intelligent. He’s got a pretty ball. He’s really accurate. You saw him run around a little bit today.”

 

Golesh needs time

 

Fans weren’t sure if they saw a team that will be dramatically better in Golesh’s first season than in Freeze’s final-year fiasco, which ended when he was booed off the field after a loss to Kentucky, then fired the next day.

The Tigers’ program is so far down — it was an abysmal 11-29 in the SEC under Harsin and Freeze — that Golesh needs time to change the culture, even in the quick-fix days of the transfer portal and NIL.

“Coach has been harping on it a lot,” Brown said. “We want to be physically and mentally tough, fly around, be the hardest-working group on the field and dominate the other team on the line of scrimmage. That’s what we’re going to do. We talk about that every single day.”

Golesh is optimistic, which is a stipulation in the contract for all first-year coaches.

“I told these guys after the game, man, if we can stay together, stay connected, continue to build a level of trust within that locker room, we’ve got a chance to have a good football team,” he said. “We have a long way to go. … We have to build a team really, really quickly. But I do love this group. They’re intentional in what they do. They’ve answered the bell in the regard that every time I’ve asked them to do something, they’ve done it. We’ve asked them to turn it up, they’ve turned it up. We’ve asked for more attention to detail, they’ve paid more attention to detail up to this point.”

Auburn fans desperate for Golesh to make the Tigers a championship program once again, as he promised on his first day, must be patient. Fortunately for them, Golesh believes as they do — talk is cheap, as evidenced by a sign on the practice field that says “Be Who You Say You Are.”