Julie Bennett
After barely contributing in his first two years at Auburn, Deshaun Davis not only ascended the depth chart to a starting role, but he was a massive piece of an overhauled defense.
"It meant the world to me," Davis said earlier this spring. "Going in, last time I actually played football was my junior year in high school. I sat out my senior year and first two years here, just to get out there on the first play of the game against Clemson, man it was just, after the game I was satisfied."
No matter what your expectations were of Davis heading into last season, they weren't for him to have 63 tackles with seven for loss, most of any returning player for 2017.
"Deshaun Davis is a very, very smart linebacker," linebackers coach Travis Williams said. "That really shocked a lot of people."
Davis will look to increase his production as a starter on the weak side, and play some middle linebacker as well, and bring along a linebacker group that includes three freshmen.
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Gus Malzahn's take
"(DeShaun Davis and Tre' Williams are) both like coaches on the field; they quarterback the defense. When they’re on the field together, it’s a good thing."
Post-spring depth chart
Deshaun Davis: 5-foot-11, 246 pounds, redshirt-junior
Montavious Atkinson: 6-foot-1, 218 pounds, junior
Darrell Williams: 6-foot-2, 244 pounds, junior
Chandler Wooten: 6-foot-2, 237 pounds, freshman
Starter
Deshaun Davis is one of the most vocal players on Auburn's roster.
A fourth-year junior, Davis made it a point to help the younger players this spring as Auburn had K.J. Britt and Chandler Wooten as early enrollees, though Britt missed practice with a foot injury.
"You always got to get better at something," Davis said. "I want to mold the young guys. That’s what coach (Kevin) Steele asked me to do. What we really want to do, is improve our depth. We know for a fact we got four guys that can play and you can put those guys on the field with us four linebackers and mix them up however you want to and there wouldn’t be any decline in production."
What we wrote about DeShaun Davis this spring
- Linebacker a position of strength for Auburn this spring
- Who will lead Auburn's defense in 2017?
- DeShaun Davis 'showed everybody what they've been missing'
- Why DeShaun Davis is unsatisfied after breakout season
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Backup
Montavious Atkinson went from one tackle in 10 games of special teams as a freshman in 2015 to 30 tackles with 4.5 for loss last season.
Atkinson is firmly in the four-man rotation and his versatility helps him see the field more.
"He’s earned the right to play," Williams said. "He’s one of my core special teams guys and he’s a guy that never gets tired. He’s like a machine. He doesn’t get tired. He has a great attitude. He’s so much better now than he was even last spring."
Auburn depth chart analysis
QB | RB | HB | TE | SE | F | Slot | LT | LG | C | RG | RT | Specialists
DE | DT | NT | Buck | SLB | MLB | WLB | Nickel | FCB | BCB | FS | BS
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Next wave
Darrell Williams can play any of Auburn's linebacker positions and would be the next man up in practicality.
On paper, true freshman Chandler Wooten is the next in line at WLB, where he played in the spring and made three tackles with a fumble recovery on A-Day.
"He’s a very smart player," Travis Williams said. "He’s everything we thought he was during his recruitment. He’s a linebacker that moves well in space. He moves well in the box. He was very well-coached at North Cobb; he did a great job with him. He’s a guy who’s exactly what we thought he was."
What we wrote about Chandler Wooten this spring
Summer arrivals
T.D. Moultry is expected to play on the weak side and be used in a pass rushing capacity.
What we've written about T.D. Moultry
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He said it
"(DeShaun Davis) wants to be coached hard. He wants to be a good linebacker. I want him to be a good linebacker. The only way to do that is not to baby him. It's not to buddy-buddy him. It's to bite on him. He reacts to that type of coaching." - Travis Williams
Looking back at weak-side linebacker after spring 2016
From May 6, 2016:
Auburn spent most of spring operating out of a Nickel defense and seldom used three true linebackers.
Defenses mostly use five defensive backs in college football so it wasn't surprising to see Kevin Steele utilize a 4-2-5 sort of scheme but projecting the weak side linebacker position is difficult off the limited sample.
Auburn is also particularly thin at linebacker, which may have impacted how many personnel packages were used in the spring.
Montavious Atkinson spent time at the hybrid "Money/Will" as Steele calls it, and would be among the lead candidates for the weak side position.
See the rest of last year's breakdown of the weak-side linebackers here.
By James Crepea | jcrepea@al.com
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