Auburn football: 5 breakout players to watch in 2020

When Auburn is at its best offensively, the Tigers can pound the rock as good as anyone in the SEC. Try to think of the last excellent Auburn team that couldn’t run the football with conviction and get back to me. One player who is ready to have a breakout season down on The Plains is sophomore running back D.J. Williams.

Williams was a former four-star recruit out of Sebring, Florida in the 2019 recruiting class. With the lofty comparison of Josh Jacobs coming out of high school, Williams had a solid true freshman season with the Tigers last year. The early enrollee had 84 carries for 400 yards and two rushing touchdowns, as well as five receptions for 32 yards, nearly averaging five yards per touch in 2019.

In the same class as starting quarterback Bo Nix, they can form quite the tandem the next two or three years at Auburn, hopefully bringing a championship pedigree to a program that only gets to that level about once every four years. The hope is Williams will be what so many other fantastic Auburn running backs have been before him. If he pops in 2020, look for Auburn to make noise.

What this really comes down to is touches. If Williams can roughly double his touches this year, or whatever the equivalent would be for a 10-game, conference-only schedule, Auburn will have a tremendous opportunity to contend for an SEC Championship. Though few college football fans are expecting this, there is a reason they’re not ruling out Auburn having a great year entirely.