AUBURN, Ala. — Running back Onterio McCalebb’s ankle hasn’t been the same since he had it rolled against Ball State. Neither has Auburn’s offense.

The Tigers have struggled without their speediest back, who has been less than 100 percent since originally injuring his right ankle on a fake punt Sept. 26.

“He would give us a shot in the arm,” offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn said.

McCalebb, a true freshman from Fort Meade, Fla., via Hargrave Military Academy, averaged 91.3 rushing yards the first four games and earned SEC Freshman of the Week honors after finishing with 204 all-purpose yards against Tennessee.

But he re-injured the ankle on a kickoff return at Arkansas. He’s played a limited role since, unable to run to the left side without feeling pain.

Auburn misses his speed, especially in the Wildcat formation, where he is the option on the sweep and forces a defense to cover the width of the field. Auburn also hasn’t had a running back to complement senior Ben Tate, whose workload has increased in McCalebb’s absence.

The offense, meanwhile, has struggled, watching its total yardage and points decrease each of the last five weeks, bottoming out with season lows of 10 points and 193 yards against LSU last Saturday.

“Sometimes I’ll be on the sidelines thinking about, ‘What if I was in the game?’ or stuff like that,” McCalebb said. “It kind of hurts me watching my teammates and I have to be keeping them up and telling them it’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right. We’ll make it through this.”

McCalebb is hopeful that he’ll be 100 percent for Ole Miss this Saturday.

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• Color everyone on Auburn extremely impressed with Ole Miss running back Dexter McCluster, a speedster who won SEC Offensive Player of the Week honors after finishing with 123 rushing yards, 137 receiving yards and a touchdown against Arkansas last week. Defensive end Antonio Coleman compared the 5-foot-9, 170-pound McCluster to another diminutive back, West Virginia’s Noel Devine. That’s a high compliment, considering Devine ran for 128 yards against Auburn this year and 207 last season. “If he hits a crease, he’s gone,” Auburn coach Gene Chizik said. “He plays on a whole different speed now. If you watch the film, his speed on the field is a little different than everybody else, so that is a challenge.”

• Malzahn said the offense needs to produce more yards in the passing game. The Tigers have thrown for only 309 yards the last three weeks, although Malzahn said they haven’t done anything fancy. “Matter of fact, a lot of teams are being a little more basic,” he said. “Like I said a couple weeks ago, they’re making us earn it, and we need to do a little better job of execution, and we need to keep them off balance. We’ve been one-dimensional, and in this league, if you’re one-dimensional, it’s extremely tough.” Ole Miss presents a challenge. The Rebels have the 14th ranked pass defense in the nation, giving up 166.9 yards per game.

• We finally got to talk to Eltoro tonight! But since I'll be writing about him for Thursday's paper, I don't want to put too many of the quotes up now. OK, here's one: "Really, just settle down and just relax more and play my game and just have confidence and whatever. It wasn't about I didn't know the plays, I didn't know what I was doing or it was hard for me to adjust. I was just trying to play not to make a mistake and when I talked to (defensive graduate assistant) Travis (Williams) or whatever and he was just telling me to go out there and relax -- everybody makes mistakes. Just go out there and play my game. That's what I did against LSU."

• OK, one more. Freeman on his absence from the team: "I felt like I was letting myself down, my fans down, my teammates down. They were really looking forward to me coming in and making an impact and I felt like I wasn't doing that. That was just really frustrating for me."

• Malzahn liked what he saw out of Mario Fannin as a tailback at the end of the LSU game, when the junior ran six times for 56 yards. "He's a versatile guy, and we do ask him to do a lot of different things," Malzahn said. "I was very impressed with the way he finished the game and took some reps in some different areas. He's one of our play-makers, and we're continually trying to find ways to get him the ball."

• Malzahn is convinced Chris Todd can turn things around. " I've got confidence in him. He's the same quarterback that played extremely well early on. There's a lot of variables that go into when your offense struggles. I know when the offense struggles, the focus is on the quarterback. There's a lot of variables. I feel like he's a good quarterback and he gives us the best chance to win."

• Center Ryan Pugh's confidence in Todd isn't shaken. "He hasn’t changed as a person. He’s still the same quarterback we named as a starter Day One, and he’s still our quarterback. Someone told me today that coach Chizik said he was our starting quarterback. I don’t think anyone on the team knew he wasn’t going to be our quarterback. Everyone is behind him. He’s a great player. He’s going through the same thing we’re all going through right now. It’s tough on him because when you’re the quarterback you’re going to get a lot of the blame. But it doesn’t is surely doesn’t need to be on him. There are 11 positions on offense, and I think you can go down the list and put some blame on everybody."

• Malzahn on TE Philip Lutzenkirchen, who caught a touchdown pass at LSU: "I think so. He's an extremely talented pass catcher. He's gotten better at blocking and the things we're asking him to do and he's practicing well, getting more confidence. It was a really nice play he made at the end of the game and there are some other younger guys on that drive that we were happy that made some plays against a good defense. Hopefully that'll help us with those younger guys create more depth and give them more confidence."

• Cornerback Walt McFadden knows defensive end Antoine Carter's knee if feeling better based on the amount of smack talk he's dishing out. "When he knee wasn't as healthy, the first couple games he came back he wasn't talking on the field," McFadden said. "He wasn't saying too much because he knew he was limited to what he can do. But lately he's been talking. Basically he's been telling people what he's going to do because he can do it now that his leg is healthy. ... He's like, 'I'm going to speed rush you. I'm going to bull rush you.' Sometimes he trick 'em. But you can tell that he's getting back into it."

• More good stuff out there on Carter, which I plan to use later in the week as well, but he commented on his smack-talking ways Tuesday: "You have to get out there and have fun. You can’t just be out there going through the motions because you’re body gets tired of it so you have to do something to make you keep going."

• Chizik commented on the general state of the team in the midst of this three-game losing streak. He seemed to say that what happened last year, when the team fell off a cliff, won't happen this year. (I'm not sure I believe him, but it's what he said.) Here is his comment on that subject: "If there was any finger pointing or anything like that going on, well I just don’t think that they want to go there. It’s like all of us, you’re a product of the past. Do you want to be like the past, or do you want to be different from the past? That’s everybody sitting in this room. You can choose to be like it or you can choose to be different. When I’m saying that I am proud of the football team, there is absolutely zero of that going on and there won’t be. So, if that was the case, well I don’t know, because I wasn’t here. If that was the case, then they have chose to go in another direction. That’s who they are right now, and that makes me happy. As long as we continue to do that, then we will have a chance to win every game we play if we execute, and it’s that simple.”