Zion Puckett evaluates change under new coaching staff

Auburn is smack dab in the middle of a big transition with a new coaching staff following the ouster of coach Bryan Harsin during the 2022 campaign. In steps Hugh Freeze, looking to turn things around on The Plains.

To that end, he’s hired a coaching staff with plenty of SEC experience.

Nowhere is that more clear than in the secondary, where he kept on safeties coach Zac Etheridge, a former standout for the Tigers on the 2010 national championship team, and brought in Wesley McGriff, a long-time assistant coach with extensive ties in the south.

Players immediately noticed the chemistry McGriff and Etheridge seemed to have this spring on the new coaching staff.

“The impression I definitely get is they know how to work with each other,” defensive back Zion Puckett said. “They’re definitely trying to dissect things for us to learn. Just getting all the players, everybody equal from the walk-ons, to scholarships, to however long you’ve been. I feel like they’re giving everybody an equal chance to go out there and play.”

Auburn’s defense was pretty bad in 2022, so there’s a lot of improvement needed.

The Tigers finished ranked 96th against the run and 97th in scoring defense. The pass defense was a bit more respectable at 59th, but still could take considerable steps forward this fall.

To that end, players were glad there was at least some continuity on the new coaching staff.

Even McGriff, actually, was previously at Auburn from 2019-21, so some players like Puckett are already familiar with working with him.

“It’s definitely been good to have coach Etheridge back, and also I was here with coach Crime,” Puckett said. “Coach McGriff, I’m actually back with him, so having those two in the back end with me I feel like is giving me a lot of juice and my teammates (too).”

Puckett is one of the players the Tigers will be counting on in the secondary this fall. He’s a fifth-year senior with plenty of experience.

In the last two years he’s accounted for 93 tackles, 1.5 tackles for a loss, a sack, a forced fumble and two passes defended.

The new coaching staff will be able to lean on him as it begins to effectuate its turnaround vision.