Xavian Sorey Jr. hopes to help lead Hogs past Auburn

FAYETTEVILLE — Georgia transfer linebacker Xavian Sorey Jr. hopes to help lead the Arkansas defense to a great showing and win over Auburn Saturday.

Sorey leads the Razorbacks with 23 tackles, including 10 unassisted, and also has one sack. Sorey has helped Arkansas get off to a 2-1 start this season. On Saturday, Sorey and the Hogs will open SEC play at Auburn.

“Really just it’s SEC play,” Sorey said. “So we’re ready for it and we know it’s grown-man ball. Like you say, SEC play. We know what to expect. Everybody knows what to expect. So it’s big-boy ball.”

Sorey transferred to Arkansas at midterm after spending three seasons with the Bulldogs. He played 27 games, including two starts, for Georgia. He had 24 tackles, 19 solo, 2.5 for loss, a sack, two recovered fumbles, one interception, six quarterback hurries and a pass deflection. Sorey and the Hogs struggled to defeat UAB 37-27 last week, but the linebacker projects a better effort this week.

“Yeah, I definitely think we will,” Sorey said. “We know we didn’t play to our standards. We’re going to have to play to our standards this week for sure. It’s SEC play so we can’t go out there lackadaisical and just playing around. We’ve got to go out there and play ball hard from the first snap to the last snap.”

Auburn had a new starter at quarterback last week with Hank Brown. He completed 17 of 25 passes for 235 yards and four touchdowns in a 45-19 win over winless New Mexico.

“I think he’s a great player,” Sorey said. “He’s a young player but he’s a great player. He earned his role, so you know what I mean. He earned that spot. I respect all opponents and I’m excited to go out there and play against them.”

Sorey was asked what the team has seen on film while preparing for Auburn.

“Really just you know do our job, do what we do,” Sorey said. “I feel like — if we could just do our job, do what we do you know that’s about us. I feel like it’s about us what we do on defense and as long as we focus on what we do and get better and what we do we’ll be good.”

The tackling wasn’t good against UAB. Sam Pittman blamed a lot of that on players being injured and limited in practice leading up to the game. Sorey talked about how practice has gone so far this week.

“Actually, for today an example, we started practice with a tackling circuit,” Sorey said. “So everybody got tackling circuits, and the coaches, they’ve really been emphasizing it this week. If a player doesn’t thud how the coaches want it to be thud, they’ll start it over. So, things like that. They really emphasized it this week, I would say.”

Sorey and the Bulldogs won 27-20 at Auburn last season. Sorey talked about playing at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“I feel like just their fans are real into it and their fans impact the game, definitely,” Sorey said. “They get real loud in there. And if I’m not mistaken, their student section is right behind the opponent’s bench, so I think that played a played a little factor. It’s just loud. There’s a lot of people. I don’t know how many people fit in there, but there’s a lot of people in there, so they [are] loud.”

Arkansas and Auburn will kickoff at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at Auburn and televised on ESPN. It was announced on Monday night that Arkansas and Texas A&M will kickoff at either 2:30 or 3:15 on Saturday, Sept. 28, on either ABC, ESPN or the SEC Network.