Rodney Garner and Kevin Steele have seen it before, but none of Auburn's defensive players have faced a triple-option offense at the college level.

The veteran defensive coaches face a unique challenge in preparing Auburn's defense for a season opener with Georgia Southern, which is expected to return to its roots with a triple-option attack under former Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Bryan Cook.

"Obviously, it's got to be assignment-type football," said Garner, who faced Georgia Tech each year when he coached at Georgia. "Obviously, it's going to be critical that we're playing sound fundamental football and that we're doing a really good job of being disciplined in our gaps, with our eyes. Making sure that everybody's doing their job and not getting overzealous, not wanting to make a play and get out of a gap and 'I'm going to make this play and I'm going to get out of my gap and I'm going to give up a big play.'

"That's what that offense is built on, for guys to get undisciplined and to start crashing when they do stuff and then they abort fundamentals and abort responsibility and start giving up big plays."

Auburn has already begun planning for how it'll go about preparing for the Eagles, who will have a new quarterback in addition to the coordinator change.

"Any time you're facing a triple option team, especially that's good at it and well coached, you've got to start working on (it) earlier," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "Kevin has got a good plan. He has been in the ACC with Georgia Tech before so he's somewhat familiar with that, but we have started thinking that way and need to. ...

"I think that's important that you have a long period of time because you're talking about (in-season it would be) three days to get ready to get ready for something, especially if they're talented and well coached, that's a challenge. It's probably a blessing that we have them when we do."

Steele's experience playing Georgia Tech's triple-option is from his days at Clemson, but even that was last in Oct. 2011.

Malzahn said the last time he faced a triple-option team dates back to his days as a high school coach at Shiloh Christian (Arkansas).

Ole Miss defeated Georgia Southern last season and while the Eagles employed more of a shotgun-based option last season, they still had 59 carries for 267 yards against the Rebels.

"It's very unusual," Ole Miss defensive lineman Breeland Speaks said. "Guys got to be focused, especially on a triple-option type teams. That was very different, but at the end of the day we got the job done."

Auburn is a five-touchdown favorite in the opener so it's not as though Georgia Southern is expected to be a monumental challenge, but overlooking the Eagles would be a mistake too. Just ask Nick Saban, who had a famous rant two years ago when recounting Alabama's ineffectiveness against GSU in 2011 when the Eagles rushed for 302 yards on 39 carries.

"Your players get very little experience at playing against it. They have very little understanding," Saban said. "And it's so different in terms of what you see week in and week out that you cannot prepare for it in a single week, nor can you get the kind of scout team look that you need to get to prepare for the speed of that kind of offense and the way those people execute it. ...

"This option offense is really, really one that is different and creates a lot of coaching and understanding. And, to be honest with you, we had to bring people in when we played that game to try to teach us the offense so we could teach our players, you know, how to play against it. And obviously, the way we played against it was not very good. So, if we ever play against it again, we're going to have to do more research."

Kentucky coach Mark Stoops faced Georgia Tech's triple-option as defensive coordinator at Florida State in the 2012 ACC Championship.

"It was difficult then. It was difficult for us," Stoops said. "It's very hard to simulate that for your scout team. And as you can see through the numerous injuries we had throughout the game, it's very difficult for our D line to be totally prepared for how quickly and how efficient they are at what they do."

Auburn believes that the fact it's got more time to prepare will be of assistance compared to an in-season adjustment. This could be a bit of a misnomer as well as Ohio State struggled mightily in season openers against Navy in 2009 and 2014.

Garner said they've been receiving conflicting accounts of exactly what type of offense Georgia Southern will run but they expect some variation of the triple-option.

"When I was at (Georgia) playing (Georgia) Tech every year at the end, we always had to take a week of fall camp and just work on that because it's so foreign," Garner said. "At least we are playing them the first week, so we will have to spend a lot of time in a team setting and make sure that we get all our fits and we get our guys eyes cleaned up and they're seeing things the right way.

"It's going to present a big challenge from a responsibility standpoint. But there's still some of the unknowns because we got different reports out of what they're doing, so we got to be prepared for a couple of different things."