The Auburn Tigers have struggled with the injury bug early.

On Sept. 6, Auburn took its first blow of the season as it was announced linebacker Austin Keys would be out for a considerable amount of time after suffering a thumb injury that would require surgery.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, the dominos continued to fall as Auburn’s 45-13 win over Samford last week came at the expense of a number of injuries. Most notably, the Tigers lost starting defensive back Keionte Scott for a number of weeks after he suffered an ankle injury that required surgery against the Bulldogs.

In a video posted to his personal YouTube channel, Scott revealed he suffered a high-ankle sprain and had a successful tight-rope procedure done on Monday. It’ll be weeks before he can return to the football field.

Scott’s injury further thinned an already-thin defensive backfield.

“With us losing Keionte, who’s kinda the captain of our secondary, we’re going to have to play some young kids,” Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said on Auburn’s Tiger Talk radio show Thursday night. “You’re going to have to play two-deep, it’s going to be 100 degrees.”

Fortunately for Auburn, it sounds like veteran cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett, who has yet to play a down for the Tigers, might make his 2023 debut on Saturday.

“We’re hopeful that Pritchett can go finally,” Freeze said. “That would be a big plus if he can.”

Meanwhile, guys like offensive linemen Kam Stutts and Izavion ‘Too Tall’ Miller were also dinged up against Samford and didn’t finish the game. And considering the Tigers will want to establish the run game early against the Aggies on Saturday, getting those two back would be a huge boost.

“Stutts has probably been our most consistent player as far as the run game is concerned,” Freeze said. “Hopefully he can go and Too Tall. They weren’t able to practice yesterday. They were dressed out but couldn’t go. We’ll see how the week progresses but we’re going to need young guys and older guys.”

Should Stutts and Miller not get the green light Saturday, Freeze mentioned the prospect of guys like Tate Johnson, Connor Lew and Jaden Muskrat getting snaps against the Aggies.

“Whether or not Kam and Too Tall play, I don’t know that they can play the whole game,” Freeze said. “So it’s going to take some other guys to play. But no question it would be helpful if we had those two.”