One of the biggest questions surrounding the new offense of the Auburn Tigers is quite simple: how will the team adjust to playing an SEC schedule? After all, most of the Tigers’ 2026 offense will be imports, largely from USF, the new Tiger head coach Alex Golesh’s former school.One major concern has been that the Tigers’ new transfers, particularly the ones who came in from USF, will not be well-adjusted to SEC defenses by the time the Florida game rolls around in September, but there is one aspect that many fans may be forgetting about this offense: they have been playing against one of the SEC’s best defenses all offseason.Yes, the defense that kept a struggling Hugh Freeze offense in contention in even some of the biggest games of the year is, in large part, the same defense that the Tigers’ new offense is practicing against this year. Admittedly, the Tigers are down a few pieces on defense with the losses of Keldric Faulk, Keyron Crawford and a few others to the NFL Draft and Transfer Portal, though the pieces they have reloaded with can be described as nothing short of dominant, including PFF’s top-graded returning SEC defensive tackle, Cody Sigler.In fact, Kodi Burns, the Tigers’ co-offensive coordinator, spoke recently on the impact practicing against Durkin’s defense has had on his offense. “Going against Coach Durkin, it’s been good,” he said. “It’s madness. It’s impressive what they do on defense. It gives you headaches. And so for our guys to be able to adjust and learn and continue to grow throughout the springtime, and really get more confident… [Durkin] does a great job, and so I think every single rep these guys get, they get more confident.”The Tigers still have quite a lot of unanswered questions on offense, but their output against this defense is certainly a great way to answer the question of how they will be able to adjust to the SEC. However, no team in the SEC has taken on a nine-game in-conference slate before, so the Tigers are now faced with the same question that faces just about every team in the SEC: how will the Tigers be able to perform over a long, grueling stretch of some of the SEC’s best?That question, unfortunately, cannot be answered in practice, so Tiger fans will have to wait and see exactly what the team does when faced with one of their multiple brutal stretches this season.Sign up for our free Auburn Tigers newsletter and follow us on Facebook and X for the latest news!Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow