When Auburn’s defense lines up against Texas A&M’s offense this week, it’ll face a challenge it has found mixed success against this season.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed runs the show for the Aggie offense. His dual threat ability has made him successful for much of the season, having thrown for 1,129 yards and rushed for 375 yards in five starts.

Reed is 4-1 as a starter, but arguably his best performance came in relief duty against LSU. Texas A&M was down 17-7 when Reed entered the game in the second half, but he helped lead a 31-6 surge, securing a 38-23 win for Texas A&M.

LSU was caught off guard by Reed, paying the ultimate price for it as he ran for 62 yards and three touchdowns. With Reed expected to start this upcoming grade, Auburn should be more prepared, but that doesn’t make the challenge easy.

“They’re very balanced. Great running attack, and obviously passing. And then the mobility of Marcel makes it even more difficult,” Hugh Freeze said during his Monday press conference. “But we’ve faced some like that, so we’ll certainly draw upon those experiences and also the thoughts that we had both pregame to those, and postgame; should we have done something different.”

Freeze mentioned that Auburn has shown improvement against running quarterbacks, a claim highlighted by Auburn’s performance against Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia. Despite losing 17-7, the defense held Pavia to 26 rushing yards on 12 attempts and 143 yards through the air on 9-for-22 passing.

A big factor in Auburn’s improvement against mobile quarterbacks is the emergence and play of true freshman linebacker Demarcus Riddick.

“We changed when we started playing him,” Freeze said of Riddick. “Not that others weren’t playing well in spots, but without someone that has the ability, that can run and tackle those dual-threat guys in the open field, it’s a problem. We had that all last year and part of this year, and he’s made a difference in that because he has length and can run.”

Riddick saw his first significant snaps against Oklahoma, a game where Auburn was tasked with stopping dual threat freshman quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr.

Outside of a long touchdown run early in the game, Auburn did well containing Hawkins, and Riddick had his best game of the season with six tackles and a sack. He had three pressures each against Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, two games where Auburn showed improvement against mobile quarterbacks.

For Auburn to find similar success against Reed and Texas A&M, there’s a little doubt that Riddick will have to play a big role again.

Freeze said that Auburn was “awful” against mobile quarterbacks in the beginning the year, and the stats and results would agree. Recent performances however give the defense something to build on, progress that it will need to continue to be competitive against Texas A&M.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m