How Auburn LB Cam Riley will improve his game as 'inside and outside' player
AUBURN – Junior Cam Riley is one of the Tigers’ most experienced linebackers in spring football practice. Wesley Steiner is equally as seasoned.
Both are expected to be key players for Josh Aldridge‘s group in 2023. Riley, though, will play pretty much every position in the linebacker room.
“Spring is going pretty good, just adjusting to the new defense,” Riley said to the media on Wednesday. “I’m going to take roles inside and outside, and that pretty much compliments my play style, being able to help across the field.”
Riley pointed out that Aldridge, who he says, “cares a lot about his players,” is his third or fourth coach in as many years.
Interestingly, Riley sees the turnover as a good thing.
“The new coaches bring some change, you know, I’ve had 3-4 new coaches each year,” Riley said. “I feel like it has been beneficial to me because it will help me out for future purposes. In the league you have to learn new defenses and new coaches each day.”
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What’s new, where does Riley want to improve?
Yes, Riley is a veteran, but the new coaching staff (mainly Aldridge and defensive coordinator Ron Roberts) wants more from him in 2023. They want him to communicate and lead vocally.
That has been the challenge.
“I would say we have to be more vocal in lining up the defense and communicating calls,” Riley said. “Linebackers are the quarterback of the defense. So we take a big job getting the calls across the field and making sure everyone in front of us is lined up properly.”
Riley has his own challenge for himself.
Being a tall linebacker who will play on the inside is not exactly common. Riley understands that, and saw on film from a year ago that he played entirely too high. It caused him to give up ground in the room game, and hindered him from scraping across the blocks in order to make play at the line of scrimmage.
He is working to fix that this spring.
“Yes sir, I would say my biggest thing, with me, standing so high at 6-5 is kind of rare at inside linebacker,” Riley said. “It’s probably a plus to me because of length and all of that, but my biggest thing would be working on pad level because I have a tendency of standing high at times, which can cause problems. It may cause me to cross over. Getting my pad level down would help me to move side to side.”
