AUBURN — Auburn coach Hugh Freeze addressed the media Friday morning with his takeaways from Auburn football's first team scrimmage and fall practices.
He called this week's practices not perfect, but cleaner than previous weeks. He felt Thursday's practice was was not as crisp as he wanted it to be.
"We went to the stadium Tuesday night and got after it pretty good and had some tackling periods and some thud periods and I thought they handled that fairly well," Freeze said. "This week, we had one that I thought was not clean enough, which that's down considerably.
"So, I think they're learning how to practice now. The fear you have is, can we tackle when it gets real because you just don't do enough of it and we'll find out soon, but we'll go a few more live periods [Saturday] and then that's probably about it. But yeah, they've done much better."
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Despite having a lot of hype around the star players on this 2024 roster, Freeze highlighted some under the radar players making plays during practices. One of them being freshman Montgomery-native Malik Blocton.
"Probably in the D-Line, Malik Blocton is going to play as a freshman. He's got something to him," Freeze said.
The 6-foot-4 275-pound Blocton finished his senior season with 115 tackles, 15 sacks and 31 tackles for loss, earning him the Montgomery Advertiser All-Area Player of the Year award. He led the Pike Road senior class to 43 wins in four years and a 2021 State championship victory. In 2023 he helped Pike Road to the semifinal round of the AHSAA playoffs.
Blocton is the younger brother of Auburn defensive lineman Marcus Harris, who finished third among SEC defensive linemen in sacks. Harris was named to the 2023 AP All-SEC team and drafted in the seventh round of the 2024 NFL draft by the Houston Texans.
Blocton rated as a top 20 defensive recruit in the state coming in, joined a loaded 2024 Tigers defensive recruiting class with: four-star Demarcus Riddick, four-star Jamonta Waller, four-star Joseph Phillips, four-star A'mon Lane, four-star D'Angelo Barber, three-star Laquan Robinson, three-star Jaylyn Crawford, three-star Tj Lindsey, three-starKensley Faustin, three-star Kaleb Harris, and three-star Dimitry Nicolas.
Freeze also mentioned Riddick's name when discussing other freshman who has shined during camp. Riddick has also gotten huge praise from teammates like defensive captain Eugene Asante.
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"I would start with probably Demarcus Riddick. I think he's going to be outstanding," Freeze said. He's gotten bigger and can run. I would start right there."
"Demarcus brings a different level of speed, athleticism. He does a lot of great things. His change of direction is great," Asante said. "I think as a freshman, the biggest thing for him is to continue to comprehend the playbook and just understand why coach may call a certain thing, pre-snap tendencies from the offense, where to put himself to be in the best position to make a play. But I think there’s a lot of things we can do with him on third down."
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn football: Hugh Freeze praises Montgomery's Malik Blocton. 'He's got something to him'
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