With less than two weeks left before its season opener against South Alabama, No. 11 Auburn is dealing with another injury.
Center Austin Wiley is currently recovering from a foot injury and is likely to miss at least the first game of the season. Head coach Bruce Pearl did say that Wiley has had his walking boot taken off and is progressing.
Now, guard Samir Doughty is also doubtful for the start of the season.
“We had an injury on Tuesday,” said head coach Bruce Pearl. “Samir Doughty turned his ankle in scrimmage work. It’s a high ankle sprain, and he’s out for a few weeks. The timing of his return will be sometime in the first week or two of the season, I would imagine.”
Auburn has 11 scholarship players on their roster. With Jamal Johnson sitting out due to transfer, the injuries to Wiley and Doughty, plus Danjel Purifoy’s ineligibility for the first nine games of the season, Auburn is now down to seven scholarship players available to open their season.
“Its disrupted our fall preseason camp,” Pearl said. “We had talked about trying to be good early. Its been harder to get good early, when we have to play against a scout team so often, because I don’t have anybody else to play against.”
Forward Chuma Okeke is aware that the team is not quite prepared for the season as they had been hoping.
“We still have a long way to go, to me,” Okeke said. “ We are not where we want to be right now.”
Okeke said they need to get better at talking on defense and knowing where they need to be.
Although Auburn has taken some unexpected hits, Pearl is seeing improved in the last weeks of practice before game play begins.
“We finally had a good practice last Tuesday,” Pearl said. “ We had officials in, we scrimmaged the scout team, and for the first time in few weeks I thought we really played like I would expect us to play.
“We handled the ball really well, made the extra pass, were engaged defensively, and played with pretty good purpose."
Auburn faces South Alabama on Tuesday, Nov. 6 at 8 p.m. CST at Auburn Arena.
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