Auburn at Vanderbilt injury updates: Thursday availability report revealed

The Auburn Tigers have a tough test on Saturday, travelling to Nashville to take on the Vanderbilt Commodores. There, the Tigers face a Commodores team looking to bounce back from a tough loss a week ago while they themselves look to find a way to move on from former head coach Hugh Freeze.

There’s never an easy time to make a midseason coaching change, but this should be a tough matchup. Vanderbilt is one the SEC teams trying to make a push at the College Football Playoff. Meanwhile, interim head coach DJ Durkin just announced a change at quarterback, moving to start Ashton Daniels. Still, Auburn is a very talented team when healthy and playing its best football.

As is the case in SEC play, prior to the game, both teams have released their availability reports for the game. These are the reports that each team released on Thursday.

Auburn

Out:
CB Champ Anthony
WR Horatio Fields
WR Sam Turner
CB Donovan Starr
OL Connor Lew

Questionable:
LB Elijah Melendez
K Connor Gibbs
TE Brandon Frazier
DL Jourdin Crawford

Vanderbilt

Questionable:
S Dontae Carter

Out:
DL Yilanan Ouattara
QB Drew Dickey
RB Chase Gillespie
DB Vanzale Hinton
DL Nikhil Jefferson

Auburn has already been able to announce several key injuries that are going to make it that much more difficult against Vanderbilt. Notably, defensive back Champ Anthony is out. Initially injured against Kentucky a week ago, he was reportedly seen on crutches during practice this week. He’s joining another defensive back, Donovan Starr, who is also out, so the back end will be tested against Diego Pavia.

On top of that, the Tigers do also have some injuries at wide receiver. Horatio Fields and Sam Turner are out for the Vanderbilt game. The outside of the Vanderbilt defense is a place some experts feel Auburn may be able to attack the Commodores. However, the more injuries that stack up, the harder it will be to do.

Of course, Vanderbilt isn’t without its own injuries. In particular, the Commodores had multiple defensive linemen ruled out in the availability report. Both of those defensive linemen missed last week’s loss to Texas, though. So, Vanderbilt has had some time to adjust to life without them.

Vanderbilt is set to play host to this SEC battle on Saturday, November 8th. Kickoff is currently scheduled for 4:00 p.m. EST. There will be more availability reports announced prior to game time.