Auburn Football: 5 Post-Spring Questions Facing the Tigers

Auburn has wrapped up their spring practices and will have the next few months off until August rolls around and they begin preparing for the regular season. Auburn returns majority of last year's team and will try to build on an 8-5 season.

Spring practice provides opportunities to get better and for players to slowly make a name for themselves and slide up the depth chart. But not everything is figured out in the short amount of time that the spring provides, and some questions have to wait until the fall to be answered.

Here are five questions the Auburn Tigers still have to answer.

Who Will Step Up at Wide Receiver?

You know when your second-leading receiver is a running back, you have some issues. Auburn returns a solid wide receiver in Emory Blake and a good tight end in Philip Lutzenkirchen, but other than that, this team is struggling to find other weapons.

Redshirt sophomore Trovon Reed has big-play ability and could be one to have a big season. Speedy wideout Travante Stallworth was effective when he was actually able to stay on the field. Auburn does have a couple of 4-star recruits in Jaquay Williams and Ricardo Louis who could also make an impact in the fall.

The Tigers have talent at wide receiver; players just need to take that next step because two offensive weapons aren’t enough to win in a defensive-minded SEC.

Who Will Play Strongside Linebacker?

One of the major downsides to not being able to practice and play in the spring game is that it provides an opportunity for a player to make an impact and possibly steal your job. In this case, this happened to linebacker Jonathan Evans, who missed the spring game with a shoulder injury. That gave redshirt freshman Kris Frost the chance to make a name for himself, and he's played very well running with the first-team defense.

Evans was a starter last season and finished the year with 40 tackles and one tackle for loss. Frost, on the other hand, is a former 4-star recruit who couldn't participate last season due to shoulder surgery. He's a very quick linebacker who has great ball skills considering he was a wide receiver in high school.

This should be a very interesting battle heading into the fall.  

Who Will Be the Back-Up Running Back?

With Michael Dyer transferring to Arkansas State, Auburn must find a few answers at running back. The talent is there; it's just a question of who's going to step up to the plate. Onterio McCalebb will be the starter, as he rushed for over 600 yards last season and scored seven total touchdowns.

Many believe Tre Mason will take the back-up role, but there is a guy named Mike Blakely who rushed for 65 yards and scored in the spring game. Despite his solid performance in the spring game, head coach Gene Chizik says he wasn't impressed with him throughout the spring as a whole.

"He had a couple of nice runs in there, and that was good to see," Chizik said via The Ledger Enquirer. "But overall for him, very inconsistent through 14 days now."

You still can't ignore that production and have to consider every back, including Alabama transfer Corey Grant, will get equal opportunities to prove themselves.

Defense?

Auburn returns 10 starters on the defensive side of the ball. That's usually a good thing, but not exactly when the defense gave up over 400 total yards and ranked 11th in the SEC in total defense last season. They now have a new defensive coordinator in Brain VanGorder, whose plan is to install a physical 4-3 defense.

That's all well and fine, but just how much will he be able to turn things around in a few months? VanGorder has a long history of working with defenses at the collegiate level and the NFL, and he's done some great work. This may be his biggest challenge yet and will take huge strides to make the Tigers the competitive group they hope to be this season.

Who Will Be Quarterback?

This is the question that everyone wants to know the answer to, as Auburn has one of the most interesting quarterback battles this spring. The two front-runners for the position remain Kiehl Frazier and last year's starter, Clint Moseley. Although Frazier played the best in the spring game, completing seven of nine passes and scoring the only touchdown of the first half, a decision won't be made soon.

"I'll never put a timeline on it, but we're not ready to pull the trigger any time soon that I see," head coach Gene Chizik said via The Sporting News.

This will continue to give Auburn fans something to debate about for the remaining months until the college football season picks back up again.