Junior Auburn tight end Tommy Trott will have surgery on Thursday to repair a torn ACL suffered in last Saturday's 17-13 loss to Georgia.
"It’s another report I hate to give you," Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville said. "He’s played very well for us. He’s one of the leaders of our offense. We hate to lose him. He’ll have that worked on and we’ll have him back for spring practice."
Tuberville said spring practice could be delayed in order to allow players who have had surgeries to heal.
"(Trott) will be back for some things," Tuberville said. "It depends on when we have it. We’ve had over a dozen surgeries. We’ll decide that in January."
Junior Gabe McKenzie, who moved from tight end to defensive end early in the season, moved back before last Saturday's game and took over when Trott went out.
"It was a move we wanted to make for Gabe the week before," Tuberville said. "We are starting to get guys back on defense and he wasn’t getting a lot of snaps."
The Tigers, who are off next Saturday and play their regular-season finale at Alabama in the Iron Bowl on Nov. 29, returned to the practice field Tuesday morning.
Tuberville said he would have preferred for the game to be Saturday, but Southeastern Conference athletics directors voted before last season that all teams must play the week before the SEC Championship Game.
"This is not like another conference game," Tuberville said. "This is a huge game, whether we’ve played like we’ve played or they’ve played like they’ve played or both teams or down or both teams are up, it doesn’t make any difference. It’s laid on the line. It’s tough to bounce back that next week."
Go below for full video of Tuberville's meeting with reporters after Tuesday's practice.
