AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn has been searching for a third wide receiver to complement starters Darvin Adams and Terrell Zachery.

Wide receivers coach Trooper Taylor mentioned Travante Stallworth and Quindarius Carr as two players who have been making plays in practice recently.

Stallworth, a 5-foot-9, 183-pound true freshman, has only two catches for 21 yards this year but has caught Taylor’s eye.

“He actually got to break the huddle down today because of his plays that he made, so that was encouraging,” Taylor said. “Coach (Gus) Malzahn picks out a guy based on his practice habits and what he’s done and the number of plays he’s made. ... It’s like an attaboy, basically, and he doesn’t give out too many attaboys.”

Carr, a 6-foot-1, 181-pound sophomore, only has one catch for 32 yards — a deep pass he caught against Arkansas — but quarterback Chris Todd targeted him again on a deep pass that fell incomplete against Kentucky last week.

“He’s a kid that has gone in the game and he’s definitely been open at times,” Taylor said. “We’re trying to get him the ball more, in the mix.”

Adams and Zachery have combined for 47 catches, 797 yards and nine touchdowns this year. The other wide receivers on the roster have six catches for 109 yards.

Taylor said it’s more than just putting in a receiver who has done well. It needs to be someone who has gotten reps on a particular play.

“With Gus’ offense it’s so important that you put the right pieces in, and that’s my job,” Taylor said. “When he calls a play, he’s not expecting to call a play and the guy he’s repped it with all week is not out there. He’s expecting me to get that guy in there.

“I’m trying to balance that out and know my position well enough that he can trust me to listen when I say, ‘Hey, you want to throw this route, this is your guy.’”

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• Tim Hawthorne was another receiver whose name was brought up. "He’s behind Darvin," Taylor said. "Darvin is making plays. If he wasn’t making plays, he’d come out and Tim would go in. Terrell Zachery, it’s tough for those guys to get in behind him because he makes plays. As a coach, I want my best out there. Plus, there’s timing with the quarterback and things like that. It’s hard for me to make him out when he’s making plays. If he was tired or fatigued…but if you notice, we substitute so much it’s really hard for those guys to get tired because they practice that way and run all day."

• Wide receiver DeAngelo Benton, a native of Bastrop, La., has had an extra bounce in his step this week, with a game in his native Louisiana on the schedule. “I told him if he’d been practicing like this the whole time he’d probably be starting,” Taylor said. "I think he's very level-headed and he understands that he takes every day day-by-day," Auburn coach Gene Chizik said. "Just tries to contribute to our team. I'm sure he'll be excited to go back to the state and play as anybody would be. I don't think that that's something that's got him uptight or anything of that nature."

• Reserve defensive lineman Zach Clayton continues to make progress from an ankle injury suffered earlier this year, but Chizik did not know if the sophomore would be ready to play at LSU on Saturday. “He’s to the point where I think he’s getting over the hump, working toward being able to play,” Chizik said. Clayton missed the opener before returning for games against Mississippi State, Ball State and West Virginia. He made six tackles in those games, one of which was for a loss. He has not dressed in any of Auburn’s last three games.

• Injured safety Mike McNeil is still not ready to return to action and appears to be approaching the drop dead date for playing this season. The junior broke his leg last spring and hasn’t played in a game since. He did not redshirt either of his first two seasons, leaving that as an option.

• “Redshirting is still on the table, and him and I have had some good conversations,” Chizik said. “We’re going to play it by ear. ... We don’t want to put a guy out there, especially at these skill positions where you put a guy out there and he’s 75, 80 percent, you’re not going to get what you need anyway to help our team win.” Freshman Daren Bates has started in McNeil’s place and is fifth on the team in tackles with 38.

• Injured quarterback Barrett Trotter (ACL) has practiced, but Chizik said he “is not in the plans.”

• Chizik doesn't sound like he's going to burn any more redshirts on freshmen this year. Although he won't come out and say it. "If you had a perfect world, you would go ahead and continue to redshirt them through the rest of the year. It's really hard for me to say exactly what we would do in an isolated incident. But this late in the year, if people are redshirted , typically that's what you would like to do is continue to ride the year out. But again, depending on what happens with your football team, you have to do what's best for the team. Again, obviously, you never say never."

• Offensive line coach Jeff Grimes was asked to talk about the penalties and responded like this: "Do I have to?" After some guffaws, he talked about them. "Unless there's a noise factor, unless you're on the road, it's just lack of discipline, lack of focus," he said. "I think we certainly addressed it. It wasn't the first time, but I certainly hope it's the last."

• Here's his take on how his line played against Kentucky: "I think OK. Some of them better than others. For the most part, we protected the quarterback well. Did a decent job in the run game. They really sat down with their safeties and came down hard to stop the run. But there were just some little things that we could have done better. I thought we could have played harder than we did and I thought we could have been more physical. I don't know if the nature of the game affected that or not. But there's no reason for us to ever allow the nature of the game to affect how we play it. We've got to the point where we'll go out and play four, full hard quarters whether we'll in the middle of a big game or up by a touchdown or whether we're down by a bit or a things aren't working. We've got to improve in that area."