The Auburn pass rush took possibly a greater loss than the team did against LSU after edge Eku Leota is more than likely to miss the rest of the season.
Leto will undergo surgery tomorrow that is "most likely" season ending, per Auburn Head Coach Bryan Harsin.
“Eku’s a big loss, and this has nothing to do with anybody behind him; it’s just he’s an emotional leader, he’s one of the smartest football players we have,” Harsin said. “I mean, he is a guy that you want on your team — how he prepares, all the things he does, the respect he has of his team.”
The injury came in the first quarter of the LSU game when Leota attempted to tackle quarterback Jayden Daniels. Unable to bring down Daniels, as he slipped the tackle, Leota kept a firm grip on him as his [Leota] body weight carried him the opposite direction. After the play Leota was escorted to the locker room by Auburn athletic trainers and came back out in the second quarter in regular clothes and a sling.
Eku Leota established himself as a key piece this year at Auburn while putting together the best season of his career. The graduate transfer from Northwestern, now in his second year on the Plains, is tied for second on the team with two sacks, along with an impressive 17 tackles through the first five games of the year. This comes after a 2021 campaign that saw Leota post 23 tackles, seven sacks, and a forced fumble.
Coming into this week Auburn has listed Derick Hall as the lone edge starter, followed by redshirt freshman Dylan Brooks who will back him up.
The rest of the Auburn defensive line, according to the depth chart looks like: Colby Wooden at defensive end, Jayson Jones at nose tackle, and Marcus Harris at defensive tackle.
Graduate transfer Marcus Bragg, who filled in for Leota after he went out, tallied four tackles and a sack in Leota's absence is now listed behind Colby Wooden at defensive end.
In response to the injury, Auburn has looked to adjusted to a 4-2-5 defense with Keionte Scott heading the nickel spot. If Auburn is to suck with their more familiar 3-4 defense, Marcus Bragg and Dylan Brooks are seemingly the front runners for spot opposite of Hall.
"That’s what we have to work through this week. We’ll see what that looks like as we put the packages in and who we have to utilize, but we still want to get the best front seven we have out on the field, especially against what Georgia does. They run the ball effectively, alright, they obviously can throw it; you got to get pressure on the quarterback. If you give him too much time, those guys create out in the open space. We’re still working through some of that, but I thought overall, I thought Bragg played well (against LSU)," Harsin said.
Heading into a matchup against No. 2 Georgia it will be crucial for Harsin and Auburn to fill the void left by Leota to be able to have success in applying pressure to Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett.
The Auburn Tigers will look to get back to their winning ways against the Georgia Bulldogs in the 127th edition of the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry this Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. CST and will be broadcasted by CBS.
