Defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson would prefer to be able to evaluate his defense with them in full pads, which he will get the opportunity to do tomorrow when Auburn straps on the pads for the first time this fall.
But just because Johnson has not had his players in pads does not mean his defense is not getting any work done.
"We have probably overloaded the kids at this point, but there is just no way around it," Johnson said. "A lot of times defensively when you can't hit without pads the one thing we like to do is really focus on install, and then when you put pads on you focus more on fundamentals. We'll slow down a little on the mental overload when we get the pads on and hopefully the kids will start to polish up."
Last year one of the weakest spots on the defensive unit was linebacker. So far this camp Johnson has been impressed with how they have shown up prepared and ready for practice, but believes they still have a long way to go.
"The older guys came back at least as well prepared if not better," Johnson said. "A couple of them lost some weight, because we thought it would help them and it did. I think from the standpoint of mental assignments they've been really good. The physicality of it we don't know yet, because they've been running around in shorts, but we'll start to find out more in the next few days."
Kris Frost has continued where he left off from spring, by impressing Johnson with his ability to learn and improve. Cassanova McKinzy though has surprised Johnson and improved a lot from spring to now.
"He's lost some weight, and his change of direction, redirecting on counters and coming out of his break when he drops in zone and those kinds of things are a lot better," Johnson said. "Just acceleration and explosion at the point of attack he's a lot better. Also, he can practice longer at a high tempo. He would not finish a practice and I felt like he was too heavy and out of shape. He did a good job of dropping some pounds and I think it really shows."
Even with some players showing off early in practice it's still way too early to tell how the depth chart will shake out before the home opener against Washington State.
"We haven't done enough at this point to tell you if a guy can play linebacker or not," Johnson said. "I know which ones can run around in pass scale and I know which ones can do drills and things, but until we put them in good live situations we won't know. Sometimes a player that doesn't look real cute in a drill is just a good natural player. Sometimes a player can do all the right things when you walk through the barrels and when you run through it five minutes later he's good, but you do it five days later and he can't remember. Will just have to see who surfaces."
Johnson also gave an update on DeMetruce McNeal who has had an infection and then had a minor surgical procedure. He listed him as day-to-day.
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