Auburn football had some key players missing from practice this week.
The Auburn football team was without several players in practice this week due to COVID-19.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as SEC schools like Auburn have built this into their 2020 season schedule. Outbreaks on campus once the fall semester began were expected. However, that still affects all the student body, including the College Football Playoff-contending SEC West team. They were down 10 players due to two positive tests, including five starters.
Auburn football had two new positive COVID-19 tests this week, and 10 players — five of them starters — sat out practice this week.
— Justin Ferguson (@JFergusonAU) September 12, 2020
So what does this mean for Auburn football in the next two weeks?
Auburn does not play its first game of the season until Saturday, Sept. 26 at 11:00 a.m. CT vs. the SEC East’s Kentucky Wildcats. We’ve seen bigger numbers of players be held out of practice before, but 10 for a title-contending team like Auburn is significant. More importantly, half of those 10 players held out this past week are starters for Gus Malzahn’s football team.
Though the names were not disclosed, let’s hope Auburn can have their mini-outbreak under control by the time Mark Stoops’ team comes to town. What is interesting is the game vs. Kentucky was not one of the two additional games the Tigers picked up this year. Kentucky was the other team besides the cross-divisional rival Georgia Bulldogs they were going to play anyway.
Auburn should win its SEC home opener over the Wildcats, but Kentucky has been a well-coached team under Stoops for the last few years. Though UK probably won’t vie for an SEC East division title, Auburn is very much in the mix to get to Atlanta out of the SEC West. They need to beat either Georgia or rival Alabama Crimson Tide on the road to make that dream a reality.
For now, Auburn needs to hunker down and harness all of its focus on Kentucky in two weeks.
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