AUBURN, Ala. – By now, Auburn's defensive line should know just how good they are. They hear it all the time from the national experts.
ESPN analyst Chris Low wrote that "anybody sleeping on Auburn's defensive line hasn't tried to block them." From CBS, Barrett Sallee said he thinks that "hands down, the Tigers have the best defensive line in the SEC." At SEC Media Days, Auburn linebacker Deshaun Davis went one step further and called his defensive line the best in the country.
It's hard to argue with them. This is a group that returns a plethora of impact players from a season ago, and the headliners – Derrick Brown, Dontavius Russell and Marlon Davidson – should all be playing on Sundays next year or the year after. The fourth starter, Nick Coe, was the SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week following Auburn's Week One win over Washington.
But none of that matters. Not to the players and certainly not to Auburn defensive line coach Rodney Garner. His message to his room is simple: Don't believe the hype.
"It's performance-based," Garner said. "We can't get caught up in what people are saying, and we can't get caught up when they say you've got potential. That's a bad word, a really bad word. We have to do it, and we've got to do it every day.
"We can't pick and choose and say, 'Today, I want to be great, and tomorrow I'm going to go out and be average.' That's not what champions do. Champions are great every day. Champions are eating right. They're getting their proper rest. They're studying film. They're doing those little things. They're preparing for that tough situation when they're faced with adversity. How they are going to respond? How they are going to handle it?"
So it doesn't matter what anybody is saying about Auburn's defensive line right now because they're not listening. They're focused on one goal – becoming champions.
"None of that stuff matters until the final bell rings in January," Brown said.
Never stay the same
Russell has been at Auburn as long as anybody. The 6-foot-3, 320-pound defensive tackle arrived in 2014 and has been starting since he was a redshirt freshman in 2015. According to defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, he walks around like he's 45 years old.
But for him, it's easy to tune out the hype. He was here in 2014 and 2015, before Steele joined the staff, when Auburn didn't have a dominant defensive line. He still remembers the 2014 season when the Tigers allowed 30 or more points in seven of the team's final eight games. He started the LSU game in 2015 when Leonard Fournette and Co. ran for 411 yards.
"It's a lot easier for me to not pay attention to what they're saying because I understand just as fast as we got to the top, we can be back in a position we were in before," Russell said.
The fifth-year senior isn't about to let that happen, though. That's why when Brown got called for a penalty last Saturday against Alabama State, Russell was the first one to come over and get on him about it. There's a standard that's been set up front, and it doesn't matter if you're a senior, an All-SEC player or a true freshman – the standard is the same for everybody.
"There's a standard in our room when we go up there every day," defensive tackle Andrew Williams said. "No matter if it's walkthrough, there's a standard. It's all love there, but it's also you want to do your job for your brother."
Like Russell, Williams is a fifth-year senior for the Tigers. He's a veteran.
That's not to say that Brown and Davidson have failed to live up to that standard. Both arrived two years after Russell and Williams with plenty of fanfare as top recruits nationally, but they quickly learned that how many stars you have doesn't matter when you play defensive line at Auburn. Three years later, All-SEC or not, nothing has changed.
"It's really hard," Davidson said. "You always hear how good you are. But then you get in the film room and you see how good you can be. Either you're going to stay the same or you're going to get better. And our coach, he always explains to us that you never want to stay the same because then somebody else will be getting better than you. So we always try to take a step forward every day."
"Coach G humbles everybody," added Brown. "His coaching style is definitely a humbling way of never letting you get too far ahead of yourself."
Feeding off each other
As good as Brown is – many project him to be a first-round pick in the NFL draft – he knows he wouldn't be as productive without the players around him. He knows how valuable it is when Russell draws a double team. He knows how dangerous Davidson and Coe can be off the edges. He also knows that if not for his line mates, teams could focus solely on stopping him.
"Teams have to find a way every week to try and handle all of us," he said.
The same can be said for Russell or Davidson or any player on the defensive line. They're better individually because of the player lining up on either side of them.
"Teams aren't able to pay direct attention at one guy," Russell said. "It's very easy to scheme one guy out of a game, and I don't think teams are able to do that with us because as soon as you double me, Derrick will make a play. As soon as you double Derrick, I can make a play. We've got two outside guys who are a handful for any tight end. So I just feel like that alone gives us an edge on a lot of people because you don't know who to kind of focus on throughout the week."
The type of talent across the board also creates competition. Everybody in the room wants to be the best. It doesn't matter if you're a starter, a rotation player or a true freshman, there's a desire to be at the top of the food chain after every practice, every game.
"We all want to be the best out there," Williams said. "It starts in summer workouts. No one wants to lose at a sprint. We really compete and feed off each other. Whenever we see someone make a play, that just inspires us. We're happy for them because we know how hard they worked. But then we also get inspired because we want to go make the same or better tackle."
And Williams is right there with the others. He doesn't get as much recognition playing behind guys like Brown and Russell. He's not a top NFL prospect. But he's still a major part of the rotation at defensive tackle as he fills in for both players.
That's the culture that Garner has created at Auburn. When Montravius Adams graduated and moved on, Brown emerged in his spot. The year after Carl Lawson left, Jeff Holland had a breakout year. And now Coe, along with Big Kat Bryant and T.D. Moultry, are looking to fill the void left by Holland. It's a continuous cycle of talent.
"One thing that Coach G always says is you wouldn't be here if you didn't have the talent to be here," Russell said. "So it's not a situation where they don't have the talent."
However, there's something special about this current group. The players will tell you that the room is as close as it's ever been, and there's enough talent, depth and experience to compare with just about any other defensive line in the country.
The only thing missing? A championship.
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @greg_ostendorf
