Coaches 'very confident' Alex Kozan will be ready for fall

AUBURN – Alex Kozan has been on the field, though limited, for all of spring practice, but the question remains whether the former Freshman All-American will be ready to returning as Auburn's starting left guard in the fall.

The 6-foot-4 300 pound Kozan suffered a back injury while training last offseason, requiring season-ending surgery.

Auburn's coaches are very optimistic Kozan will be ready for the start of the season.

"I'm very confident that he's going to be ready for the fall," offensive line coach J.B. Grimes said. "We just got to get him in shape now."

After a year away Kozan is seeing his workload increase in small increments over the course of spring, even though he's not in full-contact or the team's scrimmages, like the one set for Saturday morning.

After redshirting in 2012, starting all 14 games in 2013 and sitting out last season, Kozan's spent plenty of time in the meeting rooms. His knowledge is of no concern, it's about getting him physically prepared heading into the offseason.

"We're trying to slowly acclimate him," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "He's got a year under his belt of experience and played in some big games and all that -- the mental part. It's just a matter of getting used to the speed of the game and everything that goes with it. He's a very intelligent player. His football IQ is very high too."

Kozan was part of the group who attended the Navy SEALs leadership training in San Diego last May and was the heir apparent as the leader of the offensive line after Reese Dismukes departed.

"I'm glad to have him back out there," right tackle Avery Young said. "It's good to know he's doing good after a surgery."

By all accounts Kozan, who has not been available for interviews over the last year, is handling the recovery well.

"We want to be very, very smart, take good care of him," Grimes said, "but also knock some of the rust off because he's got a lot of it accumulated right now."

Grimes said Kozan's reps increased on Tuesday and he's being held to a snap count, much like Carl Lawson on the defensive side.

When Kozan is not on the field, Devonte Danzey is at left guard with the first-team O-line, where he took over 600 snaps and started seven games last season.

"You can just see being a senior and having all those reps banked now, the level he's raised," offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee said.

At this time in last year's spring practice Auburn experimented with moving Chad Slade to left guard and shuffling the line a bit, a move that proved valuable once Kozan went down.

However the Tigers aren't moving personnel around up front as they did a year ago, sticking instead with the core group of projected starters and Danzey rotating with Kozan.

"I think we're probably in a little different situation," Lashlee said. "We feel good with what we know about those guys, but we already know if this guy went down and we had to move a guy here and here, we kind of know what we'd do."

Auburn is hoping to avoid contingencies with Kozan once September arrives.