Bryan Harsin and offensive coordinator Mike Bobo have resparked a love for a certain position group that used to be highly touted in former years on the Plains. Now, that respark is proving to not only be worthwhile for just Auburn’s offense, but for its players as well.
John Samuel Shenker was named the John Mackey Tight End of the Week after snagging a career-high 102 yards in the air down in Baton Rouge on Saturday, serving as the primary facilitator for Auburn’s offense in the Tigers win over the LSU on the road.
Mackey (1941-2011), was a tight end at Syracuse who went on to play in the NFL and eventually took the position as the first president of the NFL Players Association, following the NFL-AFA merger and his days on the field.
As a player, Mackey was best known for his size and speed and for taking a 75-yard tipped ball to the house in the Colts Super Bowl V win.
The award, who’s winner is officially announced at the end of the season and presented to the best tight end in all of college football, was established in 2001 by the Nassau Sports Commission.
Current Cincinnati Bengal and former Auburn Tiger C.J. Uzomah was the last Auburn tight end to be nationally noticed for accomplishments on the field, as he was named to the Mackey mid-season watch list in 2014.
Shenker, the 6-foot-3 dual-sport athlete who plays both football and baseball for the Tigers, arrived to the Plains in the 2017 recruiting class as a 3-star tight end. He's made leaps and bounds physically this year, as he is continuously breaking through tackles and churning through contact for more yards. Shenker has already doubled his catches and yards from last year, carving out a much bigger role for himself in Auburn’s more dimensional offense under Harsin.
While Shenker is just the tight end of the week, if he continues to put up numbers like he did against LSU, his name may appear on this list again, perhaps even at the end of the year for the actual award's unveiling.
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Larry is a senior studying journalism with a minor in sociology. He is from Enterprise, Alabama and is in his third year with The Auburn Plainsman.
Twitter: @ReportingLarry
