The Auburn football team headed indoors for its first spring scrimmage of 2014 on Saturday morning.
With players split up into three groups, head coach Gus Malzahn said the team ran 90-100 plays looking to gather information on players in game-like situations.
"When you grade scrimmages, from a coaching standpoint, that's when you find out more about your players than you do just on a normal practice," Malzahn said. "The way they react with situations, you gain a lot more information as a coach."
While coaches have plenty of film on returning players, Malzahn said splitting the team into three groups gave new players equal reps and opportunities alongside returning starters.
The open competition of spring practice has forced many players, even those with established team roles, to focus on continuously improving.
"Nobody's position is sold," said defensive lineman Gabe Wright. "Not mine, not anybody's. We got guys trying to fight for first team reps."
Outside of a few pre-snap penalties and a turnover, Malzahn said the offense ran cleanly and at a good pace in the scrimmage.
"Once you get into your third group obviously you're going to go a little slower," Malzahn said. "I thought the first group the pace was good and I thought our defense lined up quick too."
Increasing the pace of play on the defensive side of the ball has been a point of emphasis so far in spring practice. Wright said going up against Malzahn's offense every day in practice has been beneficial to speeding up defensive activity.
"I honestly don't think we can have a better situation than what we have going against a pace offense every day," Wright said. "I believe once our defense gets the communication part down we can play fast and play physical."
Despite a high level of play in the scrimmage, Malzahn said it would be difficult to single out one player as having performed better than expected.
"From my standpoint you're rotating three groups and just trying to administrate to make sure everything goes right," Malzahn said.
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