Kerryon Johnson still thinks it is funny to think back to this time last year.
It was just days after Jovon Robinson, Auburn’s expected starter at running back, had been unexpectedly dismissed from the program on the first day of fall camp. With him gone, the Tigers would be heading into the 2016 season without all three of their leading rushers from the year before.
Johnson remembers the instant speculation and flood of questions that followed in the weeks after. Everyone wanted to know whether or not the Tigers even had a player ready to step into that feature back role, and if they did, who would play behind them?
But all that talk, Johnson said, was outside the program. Internally, he said, running backs coach Tim Horton believed in the players he had in his room. And, as it turns out, he was right to have that belief.
Last year, Johnson was asked if he thought he was durable enough to handle a lead back role. This year, after Auburn’s third practice of the fall on Wednesday, the junior running back was asked a far different question.
Can Auburn have two 1,000-yard rushers this season?
“I think it definitely will,” Johnson said. “This is the year to do it if everything goes according to plan. We just got to stay down to earth and make sure that we go get it done.”
Auburn last accomplished that feat in 1979, when Joe Cribbs rushed for 1,208 yards and James Brooks racked up 1,120. In 2016, the Tigers came within 105 yards of doing it again: Kamryn Pettway rumbled for 1,224 yards in his first season playing running back, and Johnson wasn’t far behind with 895 yards on the ground.
There’s reason to believe both backs have the potential for more in their junior seasons: Pettway put up the video game numbers despite recording carries in just nine of Auburn’s 13 games. Johnson was on pace to join his backfield mate in the 1,000-yard club when he rushed for 517 yards through Auburn’s first five games, but a sprained ankle suffered on his fourth carry at Mississippi State on Oct. 8 cost him most of that game and all of the next. The injury limited him throughout much of the rest of the season.
To achieve that potential, though, both need to stay healthy. It’s a fact that both backs, as well as Auburn’s coaching staff, recognize and have worked to try to make happen. Johnson and Pettway each had their reps limited during the spring. Pettway didn’t even suit up on A-Day. Johnson did and tweaked his ankle, but he’s back to full strength now.
Johnson said he spent his offseason adding weight while maintaining his speed, as well as working on his conditioning. Pettway cut weight and body fat in order to get quicker and more explosive. He doesn’t just want to rush for 1,000 yards again: His stated goal is that he wants to break Auburn’s single-season rushing record this season.
"We really like it better when both of us are healthy,” Pettway said. “We're both comfortable with it. It's much easier when we have each other because all the weight isn't on us."
Pettway and Johnson won’t sneak up on anybody like they did last season, when they entered Week 1 with just 208 rushing yards between them. Not after rushing for a combined 2,119 yards and 18 touchdowns to lead the nation's sixth-best rushing attack last season.
But Auburn also knows what it has now more than it did at this time last year. Even in a new offense first-year coordinator Chip Lindsey said he wants to be more balanced between the run and the pass, Pettway and Johnson are going to be focal points.
“He knows that running the ball is our strength, but that's only going to open up the pass even more,” Johnson said of Lindsey. “He still knows that we have one of the best backfields in the country and he's not going to be afraid to use it.”
With two running backs seemingly capable of rushing for 1,000 yards in the same season, who would be?
