Aairon Savage's Injury Deprives Auburn of Starting Corner, Team Leader

This was supposed to be his year.

After battling past injuries and making the move from safety, where he was Freshman All-American, to cornerback, junior Aairon Savage was the starting corner for the Auburn Tigers and was counted on to be an important part of the defense this season.

But on Monday, that all came to an end.

Savage went down hard with a knee injury that was later diagnosed as a dislocated knee, and a torn ACL and MCL.  Savage had surgery on Wednesday and is lost for the season.

Savage was not just the starting corner—he was one of the team leaders and was a player that everyone on the team respects and looked up to.  Savage's mother was quoted as saying, "His spirits are very low right now."  She added, "He prepared so hard, and then to get injured this early...he's taking it very hard."

Some of Savage's current players are also being hit hard after learning about the injury.  Fellow junior corner Jerraud Powers is his roommate, and they both came to Auburn in the same recruiting class.  Powers has been injured before and Savage was there for him.

Now it's Powers that has to be there for his roommate.

"We've been going through everything together," said Powers.  "I was injured, like seriously injured, before and he was there for me.  Now this is one of the first major injuries we've had.  It's a big blow for us.

"It hurt us as a team because we're all so close."

Another starter on defense, junior Tray Blackmon, said that losing Savage was like losing a member of their family, and they were really looking forward to having him out there and competing.  “All I can do is really pray for him and pray for his family,” Blackmon says.

So Auburn will move on and try to find some depth at a position that was already thin in the first place.  Junior Walter McFadden was competing with Savage for first team anyway, so he should be able to step in and be the starter opposite Powers.

But Auburn will not look towards some true freshman to come in and possibly play key backup roles.  Freshmen most likely to fill those roles are Neiko Thorpe, Harry Adams, and D'Antoine Hood.

The freshman are competing well so far—but only time will tell if they can progress enough to help ease the Tigers' pain in the secondary.

Get more college football talk at my blog, Gridiron Guru.