Auburn defensive coordinator Ron Roberts caught some flak from his players when he first arrived to The Plains after making the move from Baylor, where he spent three seasons as the Bears’ defensive coordinator.

A father of three, Roberts was quick to dig into his deep pockets of dad jokes and crack them with his players. Except more times than not, they didn’t land.

“He tries to make jokes that ain’t really funny,” Auburn safety Jaylin Simpson said in an interview during the preseason. “He’s definitely a player’s coach.”

Not every player on Auburn’s defense had the guts to criticize Roberts’ joke-telling – at least not directly.

“No comment,” Auburn defensive lineman Jayson Jones said when asked if Roberts’ jokes were funny. “I love you, Ron. Love you.”

But Jones and the rest of Auburn’s defense don’t just “love” Roberts when trying to stay in good graces with their defensive coordinator and tiptoe around questions about his poor joke-telling.

They legitimately enjoy playing for the guy.

“It’s been amazing to play under his defense,” said Auburn Jack linebacker Elijah McAllister, who came to Auburn as a graduate transfer after spending five seasons at Vanderbilt. “He’s an old-school football guy; he knows exactly what he’s doing because he’s seen it. It’s fun playing for him, honestly.”

Auburn’s defenders like playing for Roberts because everyone gets a piece of the pie in a Roberts-led defense.

Roberts himself gives his defense the distinction of a linebacker-led defense.

“They’re going to have to answer the bell and be productive,” Roberts said of Auburn’s linebackers in the preseason.

So Auburn’s corps of linebackers have eaten it up, starting with Eugene Asante, whose breakout season continues to build as he leads the Tigers’ defense with 62 tackles, 6.5 tackles for a loss and 3.5 sacks – all coming after a season in which Asante spent most of his time on Auburn’s scout team.

“That kind of thing fuels me, just being out there,” Asante said after his heroic performance against Cal in Week 2. “Coach Roberts, coach Alridge, this staff giving me the opportunity to show what I can do, I’m just forever grateful to them.”

For Jack linebacker and Appalachian State transfer Jalen McLeod, the prospect of playing for Roberts was one of the biggest factors that played into his move to Auburn.

At 6-foot-1 and just less than 240 pounds, many might argue McLeod is a bit undersized for the position he plays, but McLeod trusted Roberts to put him in the right position in the right situations.

“I’m not the biggest guy,” McLeod said in the preseason. “Coach Roberts, the defensive coordinator, he played with people my size before. He knows how to use him. He lets us play free a little bit. Just set the edge and get after the quarterback. Play fast and physical.”

McLeod has gone on to tally 24 tackles, 3.5 tackles for a loss, 1.5 sacks and four quarterback hurries.

Meanwhile, guys along Auburn’s defensive front have seen success, too — despite there being no shortage of challenges put in front of them.

Given the season-long struggles to sustain drives on offense, paired with injuries along the defensive line, Auburn’s defensive linemen have had to spend a lot of time on the field and not much time on the sideline on Saturdays.

For guys like defensive lineman Marcus Harris, that means playing a ton of snaps – 352 on the season or 44 a game, to be exact.

“Marcus and some of those guys are just having to play too many snaps,” Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said ahead of the LSU game.

And though a lot has been asked of Harris, the senior has delivered. With 31 tackles, 7.5 tackles for a loss, four sacks and a forced fumble, Harris has graded out as the 15th-best defensive lineman in the country, according to Pro Football Focus. And that makes it hard to justify pulling him off the field.

So it’s been a bit of a balancing act for Roberts – on the defensive line and especially in the backfield as there was once a time during the season that Auburn was without defensive backs Nehemiah Pritchett, Keionte Scott and Donovan Kaufman all at once.

Auburn’s secondary has been the group that’s probably been bit the hardest by the injury bug with guys like Jaylin Simpson and Zion Puckett also missing time here and there.

But when the Tigers’ defensive backs are on the field and in full force, they’re a stingy group. They’re ball-hawks and they have a lot of fun – hence the turnover seatbelt that’s been introduced this season and Simpson’s sideline dances with Freeze.

“He definitely makes the ball a priority,” Simpson said of Roberts. “He’s big on like, if that ball comes your way, we got it we gotta get it, if you’re in position.”

With a heavy focus on notching takeaways through the air, the Tigers lead the SEC with 10 interceptions through their first eight games.

Meanwhile, Auburn tallied just six interceptions through the course of the entire season last fall.

And without a doubt, all of that has pleased Freeze.

“I think for our lack of depth, they’ve done a marvelous job,” Freeze said of Roberts and the defensive coaching staff after Saturday’s win over Mississippi State. “The staff and kids and we’re not a very deep football team in the front six, and at times this year we’ve been very short on the back end too.”

But like his jokes, Roberts’ play calls aren’t going to land every single time.

There have been lapses on the defensive side of the football with the game at LSU and some of the explosive plays given up against Mississippi State immediately coming to mind.

And those things certainly frustrate Roberts, Freeze says.

But Freeze feels comforted that perhaps unlike his jokes, Roberts’ play calls are going to land a majority of the time.

“He is one of the best in the nation of calling a game,” Freeze said of Roberts. “One of his strengths is definitely game day, calling the football game from a defensive perspective and making adjustments within his system. I think he’s really gifted at that.”