AU FOOTBALL: Outback Bowl makes need for strong recruiting class more apparent

TAMPA, Fla. — In the month between Auburn’s season-ending loss to Alabama and its dramatic overtime victory over Northwestern in the Outback Bowl, Gene Chizik repeatedly classified the difference between seven and eight wins as paramount.

That’s why he had no issue considering his first season with the Tigers a success after Auburn’s sixth bowl victory of the decade put a bow on an 8-5 season.

“It’s very big for our future,” Chizik said. “It’s very big for Auburn.”

The afterglow of Friday’s 38-35, overtime victory likely won’t wear off anytime soon, but the next month-plus, while Chizik and his assistants work to finalize their first complete recruiting class, will be even bigger.

The bodies left in the wake of Auburn and Northwestern’s 194-play, 244-minute double feature might have been the most telling sign.

The Tigers can’t survive on this little depth for much longer.

Auburn’s defense played through dire straits for most of the season, with linebackers Josh Bynes and Craig Stevens playing nearly every meaningful snap from start to finish. Injuries hit the secondary hard late in the year and were exposed Friday by pass-happy Northwestern, which gashed the Tigers for 532 passing yards and forced them into playing nickel and dime packages through the entire game.

That forced cornerback Neiko Thorpe and safety Daren Bates to join Bynes and Stevens in the “every snap” club. Walt McFadden likely would have been with them, too, had he not gotten injured twice — once in the second quarter and again in the fourth after colliding with Thorpe on a field goal block.

Thorpe, along with safety Demond Washington, required help off the field while the rest of their teammates celebrated the Tigers’ most hard-fought victory of the season.

“I was tired in the second quarter. I hit the point where you’re as tired as you can get. I couldn’t get more tired,” Stevens said. “That’s when you have to dig down and find more. Me and Josh and a few of the guys have been doing this all year, so we’re used to it. That doesn’t make it any easier.”

Auburn doesn’t need superstars from this year’s signing class, which, after the signing of five-star quarterback Cameron Newton, ranks third in the nation, according to Rivals.com.

Excluding quarterback, where Newton is expected to have an immediate impact, and right tackle, which could go to one of the two junior-college linemen Auburn signed in December, the Tigers have few, if any, starting spots that will likely go to signees.

Auburn just needs those 33 bodies — counting the five junior-college signees — to be reliable, healthy and eligible. Gus Malzahn’s offense isn’t getting slower anytime soon either, which means the time of possession edge will likely be in opponents’ favor for years to come, requiring additional bodies at virtually every position.

“Strategically, we’re going to have to be right on with every decision we make, recruiting-wise,” Chizik said. “When we’re bringing them in. How many we bring in. We’ve got a lot of scholarships to fill.”

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