About 30 players and coaches from the Auburn football program delivered supplies in Beauregard and Opelika.

Members of Auburn’s football team, including coach Gus Malzahn, helped victims of the Beauregard tornado by delivering supplies Monday.

A large tornado with winds of 170 mph destroyed homes and killed at least 23 people Sunday in the unincorporated community located nine miles southeast of Auburn University.

“Our guys really wanted to help any way they could,” Malzahn said, according to WVTM-TV. “It’s a tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

About 30 players and coaches from the Auburn football program delivered supplies to the Providence Baptist Church in Beauregard and the Greater Peace Baptist Church in Opelika.

Auburn officials said earlier Monday it was awaiting word from local authorities on how it can help in the wake of the large twister.

"Once we have more information, we will be releasing details" on how the athletics department will help, Auburn athletics director Allen Greene said in a statement.

Auburn football players, along with family members of athletics department and university employees, began discussing plans Sunday night after two tornadoes struck the area. Several employees, including at least one in the athletics department, were directly affected by the storm in the community southeast of campus. One employee lost family members. A member of Auburn's basketball staff also lives in the community struck by the tornado.

"I know that Auburn and its leadership, both in athletics and the university, are working diligently right now to form some action plans to be able to respond not only short term, but long term to help our community to rebuild and to heal," Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl said. "The devastation is real. I live up on the side of the town probably closest to the area, right off of Moore’s Mill Road and Lee Road, up in that area, so it obviously hits home."

Auburn and Alabama's basketball programs are in the planning stages of putting together a way to support storm victims during its upcoming game Tuesday night in Tuscaloosa. Auburn football players and others traveled in 2011 to Tuscaloosa to help recovery efforts after massive tornado killed 64 people and injured 1,500.

A tornado believed to be a half-mile wide ripped through southern Lee County and the town of Beauregard, an unincorporated community of about 10,000 people, Sunday afternoon. More than 10 people are still missing as of Monday morning, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office.

"I have not seen this level of destruction ever in my experience," sheriff Jay Jones said, according to the Opelika-Auburn News.

The death toll includes children.

The tornado left a trail of devastation measuring nearly one mile wide and stretched 24 miles, according to the National Weather Service.

“We’re asking folks that are not residents of the area, please do not come to the area,” Jones said. “We don’t want folks coming down and literally getting in the way.”