AUBURN, Ala. – In the first quarter against LSU this season, the sure-handed Ryan Davis dropped a short screen pass thrown in his direction. It's a pass he's seen time and time again, and he caught it more times than not last season when he set the Auburn single-season record with 84 receptions.
But on this particular Saturday, he couldn't hang on.
So the next day, per tradition, he and fellow wide receiver Darius Slayton stayed after practice to work on that specific play over and over and over again. Davis ran that same route maybe 10 or 15 times in a row, and even when they were done, he said "Two more, just in case."
"Me and Ryan kind of have a little thing where if we miss a ball in practice or in a game, we only know one way to get it right," Slayton said. "And that's to get on the Jugs machine, stay after practice, catch whatever it was you missed and just catch it over and over and over. That Sunday, after he dropped one, he was like, 'You already know what we've got to do. Come on.'"
"We are big believers in 'Practice the way you play in the game,'" added Davis. "So we always feel like if we prepare ourselves as much as we can before the game and also during the offseason, everything is going to be easy in the game. Everything is going to come natural."
That extra work has helped both Davis and Slayton become the go-to receivers for quarterback Jarrett Stidham. The duo led Auburn in receptions, yards and touchdowns last season, and they're on pace to do it again this season.
When Davis first got to Auburn, he had never played wide receiver. He was strictly a quarterback in high school and though he was electric with the ball in his hands, there were going to be growing pains as he learned how to play a new position.
"I understood coming in that everything wasn't going to happen for me so fast," Davis said. I knew there was going to be a learning curve."
But he worked at it and worked at it some more. And it didn't matter that the Pinellas County career passing leader (6,760 yards) didn't make a single catch his freshman year. He was determined to make an impact, and as a sophomore, he was starting in the season opener against Clemson. He finished that season second on the team with 25 receptions.
That was only the beginning, though – foreshadowing of what was to come. Because the next year is when Davis led the SEC and set the school record with 82 receptions. He also led Auburn in receiving yards (815) and tied Slayton for the team in receiving touchdowns (5).
"His record just speaks for itself," Stidham said. "You get the ball to him in space, there's no telling what's going to happen. He's not a guy that's just going to run by a bunch of people like Darius, but you get Ryan the ball in space and he's definitely going to make something happen. He's going to make a guy miss. He's going to get the first down. He's going to make a big play."
"He's one of those people that you can label 'instant offense,'" added Slayton. "He's the type of guy that once you get the ball in his hands, you just want people to block or get out of the way and let him do what he does."
After an 8-catch, 91-yard performance at Mississippi State on Saturday, Davis is once again near the top of the SEC with 29 receptions for 252 yards through six games this year. He and Stidham are currently the second most productive pass tandem in Auburn history with 113 completions despite having only played 20 games together.
"I don't want to be just another person to come through Auburn," Davis said. "I always want to have my name remembered in some type of way and leave a legacy here as well."
Like Davis, Slayton didn't come in and make an immediate impact at Auburn. He signed in the same recruiting class as Davis but redshirted his first year on campus. Even as a redshirt freshman in 2016, he went from being the go-to receiver in high school to being just another target. It was a humbling adjustment for the four-star recruit.
But like Davis, Slayton worked his way into the starting lineup for the season opener against Clemson in 2016 and finished the year with 11 starts in 13 games.
"I started, and that year I only caught like 15 or 16 balls," Slayton said. "But I started and just playing, I got to feel what it felt like to go up against other guys, run routes against other guys, stuff like that. I started to feel like, 'OK, I can do this. I can compete with these people.'"
The next year, while Davis was busy setting records, Slayton became a more dominant player in his own right. His game is different. He's not likely to catch eight or nine passes in a game. But sometimes all it took was one pass where he'd get behind the defense and make a play. He finished with 29 receptions for 643 yards and five touchdowns. His 22.2 yards per catch was third-best in the SEC.
"He takes the top off the offense," Davis said of his teammate. "Obviously, he's a deep threat. He's also an underrated route runner as well – someone that can run the whole route tree, which I feel like kind of gets under looked sometimes. He's a guy that he can take any pass he gets and make it into a touchdown every time he touches the ball. He's a very explosive guy."
This past offseason, Slayton worked hard on his route-running skills and becoming a more complete receiver. Playing in five of the first six games, the junior has 17 catches for 246 yards and a touchdown. In the last two games, he's caught nine passes for 158 yards.
"I think he's really evolved as a player this year," Stidham said. "I could tell in fall camp that he was a different player."
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @greg_ostendorf
