Auburn football: Mario Fannin gets just three carries in opener

AUBURN, Ala. — For months Auburn coaches hyped senior Mario Fannin as the No. 1 running back, a clear-cut choice to carry on the Tigers’ tradition of workhorse ballcarriers.

After he took a back seat to Onterio McCalebb and Mike Dyer in the opener against Arkansas State, it’s fair to ask if that remains the case.

Fannin carried the ball only three times for 14 yards Saturday night. He lost a fumble in the third quarter on one carry, after which he didn’t get another.

Meanwhile, Dyer, a highly-touted freshman, had 14 carries for 95 yards and his first career touchdown. McCalebb, who started, got nine carries for 76 yards.

Was it simply the flow of the game or a quicker than expected changing of the guard?

“It’s always kind of as the game rolls on, how we call the game,” said Auburn head coach Gene Chizik, who maintains no change has been made.

“We were going to go with the older guys earlier and bring Michael along,” offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn said immediately after the game. “You can see that he’s got great running skills.”

Good enough that many Auburn fans think it won’t be long until he supplants Fannin as the go-to back.

“Right now, you’ve just got to look at it as, this was the first game,” said Fannin, who contributed by catching two touchdowns. “Sure, the carries, they weren’t big. But at the same time, it was the first game. You’ve just got to keep working and just stay humble, and at the end it will work out for you.”

Fannin has bounced around from wide receiver to H-back in his career, but all signs this offseason pointed to him being the one to replace Ben Tate as the primary ballcarrier.

Offseason indications were that he overcame his history of fumbling, but he lost his handle on a carry in the third quarter. Arkansas State recovered deep in Auburn territory, although it couldn’t capitalize.

“That’s just football,” Fannin said.

“You have to have a short memory and you keep going forward. That’s just part of the game. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t. You’ve just got to make sure when it does happen that you’ve got to correct it.”

The rest of the night belonged to Dyer, a 5-foot-9, 215-pound bowling ball of a back who ESPN ranked as the top running back recruit in the country last year.

He ran for 9 yards on his first carry, an outside run, but got the lion’s share in the second half, gaining 79 yards on 11 carries, with runs of 19 and 20 yards. He averaged 5.3 yards per carry overall.

“When he saw an opening or a seam in the defense, he hit it downhill and made some physical-type yards,” Chizik said. “Wasn’t a lot of indecision. When he saw something, bang, he hit it. When he felt he needed to bounce it outside, he hit that pretty quick, too. I thought he did well for his first night.”

Chizik also came away impressed by Dyer’s ball security.

Arkansas State defenders took plenty of whacks at the football, hoping to knock it free.

“I can go out there and I know I can compete with these guys on a high level,’ Dyer said.

“I’m back in the rhythm of playing football. I got a good understanding of how things work and how fast the pace is.”

Neither Fannin nor Dyer know what the future holds at the position. It could be a situation where Auburn rotates an equal number of carries between the three backs.

“That’s the coaches’ call,” Fannin said. “That’s something I can’t really control. …

“The coaches know what they’re doing. You’ve just got to put your trust in them and just keep pressing forward and cheer your teammates on.”