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Thursday, July 31, 2008

One day away

Hi everybody. I guess today's my last day of relative peace for the next four months. I spent it driving around Auburn between introductions with members of the football coaching staff, trying to find a halfway decent rental property that isn't already spoken for this fall. (No luck so far. Feel free to make any suggestions because I could use all the help I can get).

Anyway, I met the entire coaching staff today. Got to sit down with Tommy Tuberville and his son Tucker in his office for a good while and get to know him a little bit. It's nice to put the introductions behind you so you have at least met these guys before you start asking them questions. I'm looking forward to getting started with practices, and you can tell they are too, although I'm betting my enthusiasm will be dampened a bit by about Day 15 of the 17 consecutive days of practice they're about to start Saturday without a break.

Couple notes from the day and then I'm going to post a couple of amusing pictures a friend e-mailed me today at the bottom from the coaches tour in the Middle East.
* Tuberville said they still haven't heard back from the NCAA Clearinghouse on Daphne RB Reggie Hunt. He said they otherwise expect smooth sailing when everyone reports Friday. I'll be writing something from that and will post some extra quotes from the new guys on here sometime tomorrow night, so look for that.

* Auburn basketball forward Josh Dollard has been kicked off the team for breaking team rules. They put out a press release on it today. I'm not sure if that's part of why Jeff Lebo seemed so unsure over whether Dollard would be ready for the start of the year on the SEC coaches summer teleconference a couple weeks ago. But it doesn't matter. He's done at Auburn now.

Lebo's statement in the press release:
"Josh understood his requirements and responsibilities to be an Auburn student-athlete, and he has fallen short in fulfilling what was clearly communicated to him."

* Also, the official Auburn site has a new page up and running detailing all 25 of the current and former Auburn folks who will be participating in the Beijing Olympics. It's got what they'll be competing in, when, all that good stuff. Check it out here.

* Now onto the pictures from the Middle East. I'm sure these have been making the rounds among Auburn fans, so they may or may not be new to you. I'd hope nobody minds me posting them here (if they do, I'll take them down). According to the e-mail I received, they were sent by Lt. Justin Cobb, who is stationed in Bahrain. I assume he's the guy in the pictures with the coaches. I thought a couple of them were neat and a couple of them were funny.

It's crazy to me how much was being made of Tuberville's seven-finger thing after their touch football game. If it wasn't obvious to you before, it should be obvious when you see a picture of Mark Richt posing with a guy hoisting an Auburn flag -- these guys didn't have to play up team loyalty over there, they were just there to visit the soldiers. If somebody asked Richt to pose with an Auburn flag, obviously he did it. If some Auburn fan asked Tuberville to throw up seven fingers while they carried him off the field, he just wanted them to have a good time while he was there. Even when one of them held up a sign mocking how Nick Saban wasn't there and Tuberville posed with him, who cares? I mean, really...who cares? (And I guess I should point out you could photoshop whatever you want that sign to say on there. I didn't take that picture, so I'm not 100 percent sure it's legit). Either way, it's a good thing those coaches did to go over there and visit those guys. There's nothing wrong with a little good-natured fun, no matter what you might read to the contrary in some anonymous mongoloid's message board rants.

Also included in the e-mail forward were photos of the front and back sides of a coin Tuberville was handing out to those guys over there. Apparently he was the king schwag distributor over there.

FSN/Sportsouth Auburn season previews

I saw something from FSN South this morning announcing when their 30-minute season previews for each SEC team will air on Sportsouth and FSN South. They shot on campus, will run down the schedule and talked with Tommy Tuberville and Sen'Derrick Marks. If you get one or both of these cable channels, here are the times you'll be able to catch it:

SPORTSOUTH
Sun, Aug 10 9 p.m. (ALL TIMES EASTERN)
Tue, Aug 12 7:30 p.m.
Wed, Aug 13 11:30 a.m.
Wed, Aug 13 11:30 p.m.
Sat, Aug 16 7:30 p.m.

FSN SOUTH
Fri, Aug 8 7 p.m.
Sun, Aug 10 1:30 p.m.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Crittenden named all-AIFL

Former Auburn offensive lineman Monreko Crittenden was named to the American Indoor Football Association's All-Western Conference team today. He plays for the Columbus Lions here in town, as does ex-Auburn receiver Silas Daniels.

They both had outstanding years for the Lions. Daniels didn't make the all-conference team, but he was one of the top receivers in the league. He finished the year ranked seventh in both receptions and receiving yards (68 catches, 898 yards, 20 TDs). Crittenden was signed away by the Arena Football League's Los Angeles Avengers during the regular season and returned to the Lions when the AFL season completed. (In essence, the AIFA serves as a minor league of sorts for the AFL). You may remember that he was a rather oversized lineman when he was at Auburn. That certainly hasn't changed. The Avengers' Web site lists him at 6-5, 395.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Heisman hopefuls on tap

I started thinking a little bit tonight about which players to keep an eye on as the season gets going and I consider how to vote in the Heisman hunt. It occurred to me how several of them are on Auburn's schedule this year. Although there might have been even more last year, with Tebow, McFadden and Percy Harvin all coming to mind. I think Harvin is a strong darkhorse for the award this year.

All three of the guys I included on my ballot were underclassmen (Tebow-McFadden-Daniel), as was the last guy I left off, West Virginia's Pat White. I waited until the final night to let White usurp Daniel for third. But frankly they both had so-so nights at best, with White's team losing to lowly Pitt and Daniel's team getting blown out by Oklahoma. So Daniel got a vote from me.

Anyway, you've got a handful of guys who very well may get some serious Heisman attention who will go up against the Tigers this year:
* Tennessee: Arian Foster (and Phil Steele included QB Jonathan Crompton on his list of darkhorses, although I'm not so sure about that)
* Arkansas: Casey Dick (just kidding. although I'm betting he'll be better at running Petrino's offense this year than many folks expect)
* West Virginia: White and Noel Devine
* Georgia: Knowshon Moreno and Matthew Stafford (I think Knowshon makes it to New York if he remains healthy

I didn't include Ole Miss QB Jevan Snead on there because that's probably a stretch, but I think he's going to cause a stir in the league this year. I've watched him play a little bit and think he's going to be a star.

It's hard to say Tebow's not the favorite going into the season, but I'll bet right now that he won't win it. Not because he won't play well enough to deserve it, but because A) I think the Gators will spread it around more this year and he won't put up numbers that are quite as eye-popping and B) more importantly, I expect the voters to be awfully fickle and overly critical to justify not giving him the award again. We'll see though.

Right now, I guess my top five would be:
1. Tim Tebow, Florida
2. Chris Wells, Ohio State
3. Chase Daniel, Missouri
4. Pat White, West Virginia
5. Knowshon Moreno, Georgia

It's awfully early to be making predictions, but it's kind of fun to consider all the possibilities. I have about 20 guys on my list that I could see winning it right now.

Hudson likely out for year

I just saw where Atlanta Braves pitcher Tim Hudson, who has all sorts of ties to this area besides pitching for Auburn (born in Columbus, went to Glenwood High and then Chattahoochee Valley Community College in Phenix City) is out for the year. It's unfortunate, but it looked like the writing was on the wall when he came off the field shaking his arm/elbow the way he did in his last start against Florida.

It's tough to keep seeing this stuff happen as someone who grew up on Braves baseball. I finally turned off last night's bludgeoning they were taking from St. Louis because it's like you're not even watching the Braves anymore. Because of all the injuries they've sustained, it's like you're watching a bunch of Triple-A players in Braves uniforms -- I guess, because you are. It seems especially tough for folks in this area to watch right now, because Hudson still has a ton of friends and family around here and is an immensely popular guy. Here's hoping he comes back good as new. He was an unbelievably good player at Auburn.

Tentative AU practice schedule

Auburn released its tentative preseason practice schedule today. Here are the days leading up to the first day of class, which I'm pretty sure is when they start limiting practice access. Up until then, they're at the intramural fields and fans/media are allowed to watch all they want. Keep in mind these are TENTATIVE times and subject to change, but I thought I'd post them in case someone wanted to get an idea of times they might try to watch.

Fri., Aug. 1 Freshmen report (5 p.m.)
Sat., Aug. 2 Practice starts 9:45 a.m. (Fan Day 3-5 at Beard-Eaves)
Sun., Aug. 3 4:45 p.m.
Mon., Aug. 4 4:30 p.m.
Tue., Aug. 5 9:45 a.m.
Wed., Aug. 6 9:45 a.m. (First day in full pads)
Thur., Aug. 7 8:15 a.m. and 7 p.m. (First day of two-a-days)
Fri., Aug. 8 9:45 a.m.
Sat., Aug. 9 9:30 a.m.
Sun., Aug. 10 7 p.m.
Mon., Aug. 11 8:15 a.m, and 7 p.m. (Second two-a-days)
Tue., Aug. 12 9:45 a.m.
Wed., Aug. 13 8:15 a.m. and 7 p.m. (Third two-a-days)
Thur., Aug. 14 9:45 a.m.
Fri., Aug. 15 8:15 a.m. and 7 p.m. (Fourth two-a-days)
Sat., Aug. 16 9:30 a.m.
Sun., Aug. 17 7 p.m.
Mon., Aug. 18 CLASSES BEGIN, NO PRACTICE

Good news on satellite radio front

If you hadn't already heard, the two competing satellite radio companies, XM and Sirius, finally completed their merger today after months of holdup because of government red tape.

I don't know exactly how many Auburn fans, or SEC fans for that matter, this affects, but it definitely was good news for me. The entire league's games were slated to be carried on XM only this year, after most all of them (including AU) had been on Sirius to this point.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who chose Sirius specifically because it carried nearly all the football broadcasts from the SEC. It was a great toy for those Saturday afternoons when I'd be driving from Athens to Columbia to cover a night game and could still listen to Auburn play the JP game against Mississippi State on Sirius. Or last year driving back from UGA-Tennessee in Knoxville and listening to LSU-Florida. I could go on and on. It's a great resource for a beat writer who otherwise might not be able to know much about what's going on from around the league on Saturday night because it's not possible to sit down and watch it on TV like most everyone else.

They haven't announced exactly how the plan will work, but in the release they discuss how they'll offer a la carte packages under the new merged company. I'd assume there will be ways for listeners to receive both the NFL (previously carried on Sirius only) and MLB (XM only), or get Howard Stern (Sirius) as well as Oprah (XM)...although I doubt there'll be too much crossover between those two particular audiences...For me, I'll definitely be interested in keeping my Sirius music stations and adding SEC and MLB packages, as long as it's not too much more than the $11.95 per month I currently pay (although I'll definitely get the SEC stuff).

I love the idea of a la carte programming. I wish cable companies would subscribe to such a policy. It's ridiculous that they can subsidize some of these ridiculous cable stations by forcing them down your throat in some package that includes stations you actually want to watch. Unfortunately, if we were actually able to pay for only what we want to watch, they wouldn't make nearly as much money, I suppose, so there's no incentive for a cable company to do such a thing. A man can dream, though.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Auburn not ranked in top 20

of the nation's top 20 party schools, according to the Princeton Review, that is. We've found another list dominated by SEC schools, however. Five schools from the conference are among the top 20.

1. University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.
2. University of Mississippi, University, Miss.
3. Penn State University, University Park, Pa.
4. West Virginia University, Morgantown, W.Va.
5. Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.
6. Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Va.
7. University of Georgia, Athens, Ga.
8. University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
9. University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, Calif.
10. Florida State University, Tallahassee, Fla.
11. University of New Hampshire, Durham, N.H.
12. University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
13. University of Colorado, Boulder, Co.
14. Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.
15. Tulane University, New Orleans, La.
16. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Ill.
17. Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.
18. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.
19. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
20. Loyola University-New Orleans, New Orleans, La.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Just so you know...

Sen'Derrick Marks has a column in today's Sporting News Today (page 14, if you're looking). Not shocking stuff. Entertaining stuff. From what I saw at Media Days, Sen'Derrick seems like an enormously likable kid. I'm sure he'll remain so in his columns. ... even if they're diaries ... which are of course, "for females."

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Kenny Irons released

I just saw where the Cincinnati Bengals released Kenny Irons yesterday after he failed a physical. Found that surprising, although I read where his rehabilitation from a torn ACL suffered in last year's preseason opener is going slowly. The Bengals' web site points out that they often re-sign injured players they cut once they clear waivers, but they had to make a move with Irons to meet their roster limit. I would hardly say his NFL career is over just yet.

The Bengals have notoriously struck out with a lot of their high draft picks in recent years. I was thinking just now about how several of them are ex-SEC guys.

Kenny Irons (2nd round, 07) assuming he doesn't stick with Cincy
David Pollack (1st round, '05)
Odell Thurman (2nd round, '05)
Keiwan Ratliff (2nd round, '04)

Friday, July 25, 2008

Tuberville's morning comments

Here's a transcript of nearly all of Tommy Tuberville's 20 minutes with the Auburn beat writers this morning at the Wynfrey. I cut out a little chit chat, but this is all the relevant stuff. You can read a transcript of his time on the podium here.

This was my first time around the entire group of AU writers and I met Tuberville for the first time today. Hopefully will get to stop by and talk with him and the staff a little more one-on-one next week before practice gets going. I didn't ask anything today because I wanted to kind of observe how things work and will probably need a little while to get a feel for the new group...but that just comes with time.

Anyway, here's what he had to say before he took the podium in the big room:

I saw this morning where all of you, or some of y’all, picked us No. 1 in the (West). We probably didn’t get a lot of votes out of this room because y’all know how good we’re gonna be or not gonna be. It’s kinda different to think you’re gonna be picked to win the West when your quarterback is unproven. I don’t think that happens very often because your quarterback is a guy that’s gotta really do a lot. This year we’ll play two quarterbacks, but we will have one starting quarterback, a guy that everybody knows is our starter. It could change during the year, might not, but obviously it’s gonna be a scenario too like we played in the bowl game, where Brandon Cox played and then Kodi came in at certain times. I don’t know who’s gonna be the quarterback. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Chris Todd is not our starting quarterback. Kodi would be as of today, but Chris has worked very hard, as Kodi has, and his shoulder’s much better. But we’re gonna need both of them. But I want everybody to know that we will have a starter on the depth chart. But we’ll use two, maybe three. We’re probably gonna have to use three. We’ll have to see how that’s gonna work out. Neil Caudle has worked hard. I’ll tell you, Neil’s throwing the ball well. It could be a scenario like Brandon, him going in and throwing the ball in certain situations. The quarterback situation is, I think, in good hands. I like what they’ve done this summer. Every time I’ve looked out the window, they are out there throwing and the receivers have really raved about all the quarterbacks out there throwing the football.

I look at our football team this year in terms of offense and defensive line. Every year I tell y’all that and it has to start there. This could be one of our better groups on both sides. I think offensive line, with three freshmen last year we started, all of them are coming back. Chaz Ramsey had surgery, has worked out quite a bit this summer, is not 100 percent. The question is where he’s gonna be when we start two-a-days. His availability, it’s totally up to him. I know how back injuries are and it’s a lot like Marcus McNeil’s, and we all know Marcus McNeil’s situation and where he ended up. But Chaz has worked real hard. Mario Fannin is back, ready to go from shoulder surgery. He’s 100 percent. He’s a guy that’s gonna have to play well for us in a lot of places and he’s ready to go. I think that’s the injuries on the offense. On the defensive side of the ball, of course Tez Doolittle’s back. He told me he’s 100 percent. The doctors say about 95. It’ll be a bonus to see what he can do. He’s been out for a year, Achilles. Torn Achilles is hard, but he’s been dedicated and worked. He’d be a bonus for us to get back to the position he was in. He was really playing well last year for us.

Bo Harris is no longer with us. You know, he got injured, and he’s decided to transfer. I don’t know where he’s transferring to, but he’s no longer with us. We’ll miss him because he’s a good football player, but it just didn’t work out. Let’s see, who else, oh the other player that I want to talk about is Tristan Davis, he’s gonna be a key for us. Tristan, he told me last night – he was at Chette’s deal – that he’s 100 percent for the first time. Last couple weeks he’s had no pain, no stiffness. He will wear a metal protector over the end of his foot. It might affect him a little bit, but we’ve got a lot of plans for him in a lot of places, situations. Not just running back, but also on special teams. Nothing really new to talk about. The freshmen that will play this year, there will be several, especially at cornerback. We will play probably two guys. Harry Adams is a corner. D’Antoine Hood … he’s worked hard. A lot of the receivers, I talk to them after they work out and they say both those guys are really looking good. So playing the nickel and dime defenses like we’ve played in the past, we’re gonna have to play a couple of those guys inside. We just don’t have the numbers after losing some guys to graduation last year. All right, questions.

On being picked first, impact on players:
Well, I think they’re looking at us playing LSU at home this year, in one of the scenarios, which makes not a lot of difference because both teams usually play well at either place. I think that our quarterback situation is up in the air, theirs is more up in the air because of losing Perriloux. I think probably they’re looking at that. A lot will be told before we get to that game, anyway, on who’s gonna be the better team going into the game. We’ll accept it. It’s been a while since we’ve been picked No. 1, I think. You look at last year’s season, it could have been a great year for us. We lost three games basically on the last play of the game out of the four games that we lost. Hopefully we can play better early. Last year on offense we just came out slow. We made some mistakes defensively in a couple of the games that cost us. One thing I want to do this year is I want to have a few more big plays in the season. We’ve got to be able to score from a distance and not have everything be like pulling teeth to get the ball across the goal line. That’s what I’m looking for on offense. We’re gonna run the football. Defensively we can’t give up the big play. In every game that we played in last year, we gave up some big plays. That’s not Auburn football, so we’ve gone back more to fundamentals and technique, trying to play more consistent. I know we played great at times on defense, but there are times when we didn’t play great, and it cost us. It just wasn’t the offense. We’ve got to be a more well-rounded team and play better and especially with big plays on both sides.

On whether Chaz Ramsey’s injuries are career-threatening:
No. Again I can’t predict the future, but just watching him run and stuff … you look at all big guys and weightlifters and guys that have played football, I would say a majority of them have back problems. But again, you can’t predict what’s gonna happen. Just knowing Chaz and his love for football, we’re not gonna put him in danger. It’s gonna be his decision of how much he can (stand). He’s gonna always have pain. We have some on the team now that play with pain, with back injuries. He just got to the point where the doctor felt like let’s go ahead and fix a little bit of it, and he’s come back and he’s done some things. But now is he ready to play this year, we’ll have to wait and see. Is he gonna redshirt this year, that could always be a possibility, but don’t write that I said he’s gonna redshirt because he could be a starter in the first game. We’ve just gotta see how he’s gonna react in the first part of the year. But he does, he’s got that year left that we could get back for him.

On Andre Wadley’s condition:
Andre’s doing good. He lost weight. Everything kinda shut down on him. He’s probably gonna have to rehab for a while. You know, he hasn’t done a lot, so we’ll have to wait and see his situation when it comes to practicing early. It’s probably not gonna be much if any at all for a while. Again, he’s a freshman. We’re gonna take it slow, we’re gonna look out for his well being, No. 1. That’s the No. 1 thing, but football’s second right now. We want him to get back 100 percent where there’s no chance at all we’d take any chance with him.

Is he in Auburn or back home in Mississippi?
No he’s in Auburn.

What exactly happened to him?
It’s just one of those things that they really don’t know. He got hot. He came in in one of the best shape of any of the freshmen. We don’t put them in regular workouts in the summer. They work out in freshman groups and we kinda bring ‘em along slow. It was a hot day and I think it was on a Monday. I mean, he’d had no problem, and they didn’t know whether he got the flu while he was working out, had a bug or a virus, but they’ve done all kinds of test on him and really to this point there’s been no answer to what happened. I think it’s just his body just kinda reacted to the heat. He said he didn’t eat a whole lot and then he got to a point, it’s just taken him a while to get back.

Any fear of it affecting his career going forward?
No, not really. But again, like Chaz Ramsey, his health is No. 1. We’re not even considering football till the doctors … I think they want to find out what really is the problem. Again, he’s been run through the ringer, now, tests and all those things, so we’ll find out hopefully what actually caused it. Because I don’t want him back out there and put him in harm’s way until we find out just what he can do and what he can’t do. But again, he’s just a freshman. We want to get him in school, get him going, be part of the team and kinda let him get back into it slowly. It’s been a tough situation being in that hospital for a while.

Any word on Reggie Hunt?
As of this morning, I hadn’t heard. We’re all waiting, so … But he’s made his scores and stuff. It’s typical. Every year we’re always sitting here talking about one. The different scenario this year is the NCAA has taken the Clearinghouse back over. It’s not sent out to some other firm. I think it’s gonna be better, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

On Ryan Williams:
Well, we’ll have to wait and see. He’s worked hard this summer. He’s back, running and doing all those things. He got himself in a little bit of a bind, so he’s got to work hard to get out of the doghouse.

How long was he home in Mobile?
He went for a month. He had to go back there, academically.

So this will probably depend on how he does second semester?
Yeah.

On being picked first and its impact on players:
I think some will embrace it. I think some will be a little … but the experienced guys will understand that’s more talk than anything. That’s got nothing to do with reality. It’s just what people think about you in terms of possibilities. We’ve got a lot of room for improvement, two new coordinators that really don’t have a clue about this league, in terms of the speed. Tony does a little bit, but even Tony’s been out of it for a while. You’ve got to have a plan. That’s one thing I like about what we’ve done. We’ve got a great plan going into two-a-days to try and make this team, get the most out of it. If we can get the most out of this team, we’ll give it a run. It’s gonna depend a lot on the other teams, too, who we’re playing. We’ve got some of our bigger games at home, so. … The even years are a little bit better for us most of the time.

How different will this two-a-days be from the ones in the past?
That’s been a major topic of conversation with all of us. Because you know 105 on the team … You call it two-a-days, but really it’s not two-a-days anymore. You go out two times a couple times, four, five times. But this offense dictates the speed of practice. We want to make sure we get to Aug. 30 intact and not physically spent, because you can go out there and you can practice for 45 minutes and absolutely run them into the ground. That’s the reason we’re making sure with the, what, 35 walk-ons that we’ve got coming in that we’ve got good depth at each position. We’re bringing in another quarterback to make sure we don’t throw our quarterbacks’ arms out. We’re bringing in another running back to make sure that we’ve got some depth there where the guys don’t have to take all the reps. It’s just, we’re gonna have to, instead of going by time like we normally do on the clock, we’re gonna go by plays. How many plays we want to run in each period. So you’ll see the clock up there when you’re out there, but you’ll see times when the clock’s turned off and turned back on. There’s some things I want to time, there’s somethings I want to make sure that when we get in skelly, instead of having 20 minutes … Last year I think when Tony came in, we had a 20-minute period for skelly. We were gonna go that full 20 minutes and that normal time, we’d get in 30, 35 plays. We ran 60 plays. Well with two sets of corners over there, they’re over there with their tongues hanging out. So you’ve gotta be smart with this offense. You want to practice like you’re gonna be in a game, but you also want to make sure that you’ve got a little bit left at the end of the day.

Will Raven Gray be ready to go at the start of practice?
Yeah. He’s gonna be full pads and so will Tez. A lot of people think we’re gonna ease Tez (?), hey, time to go. We’re gonna put ‘em in pads. Yoxall and the strength coaches say that they’ve done great. We’re not gonna put ‘em in harm’s way, but they know that if they’re gonna be part of the team that they’ve got to go through two-a-days. Raven not going through spring practice set him back and Tez just missing the entire year, he’s gonna need 10 or 15 good practices to get back into playing shape.

How much of a concern is safety depth right now?
Well, we’re probably gonna move some guys around. Aairon Savage can always go back and play safety, and he’ll probably play some. It’s gonna depend a lot on the corner situation, some of the younger guys, how we feel about them and what they can do and can’t do. But we’ve got several positions, as everybody’s got, every year, that you can’t get anybody hurt. Look at the offensive line. We’re looking at, pretty much, after not signing anybody last year and Jermaine not getting in school, of just two-deep. And with Chaz beat up a little bit. So there’s some areas where the depth is a little bit of concern, not just for games, but also being able to practice this offense.

On why he brought Sen’Derrick Marks, a junior, to Media Days rather than a senior like he typically would:
Well, just the way he played last year. I like to bring seniors if you’ve got one that you think has played up to potential. We thought Sen’Derrick, him starting at tackle, moving to end and then coming back, that’s a great story. That’s a kid that’s dedicated to his team. He’ll play anywhere. He’ll play middle linebacker. I think he’s a good promoter for our program, on what it stands for. I think he’ll do good today. And you always look for somebody that has got a good story behind them. I always like to bring a quarterback, but of course neither quarterback has played much, nor do we know who the starter is gonna be.

Quickie Auburn notes

Again, will post most of the Q/A tonight after I get back home. Got to get back downstairs before Auburn takes the podium.
Some quick things:
* Tuberville on being picked to win the West: "If we can get the most out of this team, we'll give it a run." He said getting LSU at home and LSU's even more glaring uncertainty at QB compared to Auburn's was probably why more media folks picked AU to win the West.
* Bo Harris is leaving the team to transfer.
* Andre Wadley is back in Auburn and will have to start rehabilitation because he's lost weight since unknown heat-related illness put him in the hospital for about a week. Tuberville said they're going to take it slowly with him to look out for his well-being. Not sure exactly what happened, either: "To this point, there's been no answer to what happened." (I'd be shocked if he doesn't redshirt this year, but that's just my opinion).
* They're still waiting to hear on Reggie Hunt's eligibility. Ryan Williams is also questionable academically.
* Chaz Ramsey is not 100 percent and probably won't be. Tuberville said he's always going to play with pain and they'll have to wait and see how much he'll be able to do. He doesn't expect Ramsey to take a medical redshirt, but didn't rule out him taking a redshirt if that's what they decide would be best for him -- since he hasn't burned a RS yet.
* Mario Fannin is 100 percent healthy and ready to go.
* Tez Doolittle is about 95 percent according to the doctors (100 according to Doolittle). Doolittle and Raven Gray are both expected to be in pads when they start two-a-days.
* Tristan Davis is pain-free and without stiffness in his foot. He'll play with a metal protector over his foot.
* He thinks some freshmen will have to play, particularly at cornerback. The names he mentioned were Harry Adams and Central-Phenix City's D'Antoine Hood.
* Something that interested me was that instead of letting time decide how long they spend in practice periods this year, they'll go by the number of plays they spend in each period. It's because of the new offense. Because things move so quickly, you can run an inordinate number of plays in a normal 20-minute period and subsequently wear out your players. I'm sure I'll get to more of that as practice begins. It's a small change that most of us would have never known about/noticed, but I think it says a lot about the pace of the offense...

So that's all for now. Auburn's going on stage in a minute and I need to get down there.

Auburn picked to win West, nine named all-SEC

Just got back from the Auburn beat writers' session with Tommy Tuberville before he goes to the podium in the big media room. Will drop some notes from that in a minute (and will transcribe the Q/A later and post that as well).

First things first, Auburn was picked to win the West in a landslide. Auburn got 48 first-place votes over LSU's 21 in the media balloting that took place this week at Media Days.

Florida (45 votes to win East over UGA's 23. Florida got 36 first-place votes to win the SEC title) was picked to win the East and the conference. Georgia (18 votes) was picked second in both and Auburn third overall in the conference with 13 votes.

Auburn placed the most players on the two all-SEC teams that were announced with nine. LSU was second with 8.

FIRST TEAM
Sen'Derrick Marks
Ryan Shoemaker

SECOND TEAM
Tyronne Green
Lee Ziemba
Ben Tate
Antonio Coleman
Tray Blackmon
Jerraud Powers
Wes Byrum

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Oher on "The Blind Side"

I'm writing a note for tomorrow's paper on what Ole Miss lineman Michael Oher had to say about "The Blind Side," Michael Lewis' book that essentially serves as a biography of Oher, among other things.

The kid has a remarkable story that you kind of have to read about in detail to really believe. Here's a pretty good retelling from the NY Times.

Anyway, Oher said he hasn't read the book and doesn't plan to. Why?
"I lived it."

Makes sense, I guess.

Here's a profile of him and his life. It's pretty incredible.

Fulmer comments

I'm sure he's already been asked about it in pretty much all the TV/radio interview rooms he's appeared in already today, but one of the first questions Phil Fulmer fielded just now concerned the subpoena in that Alabama booster's lawsuit against the NCAA. He said he has not seen the subpoena, adding,

"As I said to all the other groups, this is not the place for that kind of thing. The great fans who have great passion about the Southeastern Conference are not interested in that kind of BS."

Fulmer craziness

The buzz around the Wynfrey today is about how/whether Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer was issued a subpoena today as he arrived for Media Days.
Here's a copy of the subpoena.

He's being called to be deposed Sept. 25 in Alabama booster Wendell Smith's libel and defamation lawsuit against the NCAA. Incidentally, that deposition would come two days before Tennessee is scheduled to play Auburn.

He's due on the stage in just a few minutes. We'll see what he has to say.

Spry's house catches fire after lightning strike

Pardon the interruption from all the football talk, but I was just playing around online while Nick Saban was on the podium and came across this story from a local TV station.

Auburn track coach Ralph Spry's house was hit by lightning and burned down Tuesday evening. Thankfully no one was injured.

Link

Interesting sidenote

Typically the lobby of the Wynfrey is choked with people on the day Alabama's on stage at Media Days. Particularly in the timeslot when Alabama's actually on. But I just rode the escalator down to the lobby with Jay G. Tate from Montgomery just to take a look at the crowd and it was surprisingly thin.

It was crazy down there last year when Nick Saban and company arrived, but there might have been half as many people down there this year. Maybe less. I was pretty surprised by that. I've only been to this thing three times, but there was a significantly larger Alabama crowd down there the previous two years.

(And that may have nothing to do with Alabama. They've been more diligent about security here this year and that could have affected the number of people they allow into the lobby. I have no idea...I'm just saying there were fewer people, which I found interesting.)

Surprisingly enough...

Mark Richt was actually a bit feisty today. When he was talking about how the notorious touchdown celebration after the first touchdown against Florida affected the season, he went on to discuss what that win meant in the rivalry. He made a crack about what heated up the rivalry was not the TD celebration, but that Georgia actually won.

He's heard so much about how poorly UGA has fared against the Gators that he kind of bristled while talking about the subject and said you can't just look at what happened in the last 15 years (which is a ridiculous thing to say, really, considering Florida dominated the series for so long and it's pretty clear the Gators were in the Bulldogs' heads for a long time), but that UGA's 2-2 against Florida in the last four and has dominated the series overall. It was interesting to see him be like that because he's usually Mr. Cool.

Here's his quote:
"I don't think there's any doubt it's intensified the rivalry. But what intensified the rivalry is that we won, okay? I mean, that's the reality.

"But, you know, people want to talk about streaks in that game. The way I see it, we won last year. We won two out of the last four. And if you want to start going back in history, you might as well go back to the beginning of the history of the series and see where Georgia is there.

"You know, I don't know why everybody wants to go just 15 games back. I mean, if you want to go back, go back to the beginning. If you want to talk about recent history, let's talk about last year, the last few games, you know."

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Remember Jerrell Powe?

He was committed to Auburn at one point about three years ago. Of course, I believe he committed to every school in the SEC before finally settling on Ole Miss at the end. Well, you may or may not have followed his struggle to gain eligibility after failing to qualify for SEC competition on numerous occasions. It appears that he may finally be preparing to play as a partial qualifier, something the SEC has historically not allowed.

You can read more about the whole saga in this lengthy blog explanation.

Mike Slive didn't mention any names, but he discussed the situation today in his opening remarks at Media Days. In fact, he went out of his way to NOT name names:
"It is inappropriate to associate this legislative change with any individual student-athlete or prospective student-athlete," he said.

Yeah, right. They might as well call this the Jerrell Powe corrolary.

Here's the portion from Slive's remarks that addressed partial qualifiers. Basically, he reserves the right to let them in, but it's gonna take some work on their part:
"There has been confusion about a recent amendment that the conference made to its bylaws with respect to student athlete eligibility, with some reports indicating the conference has relaxed its academic standards. In fact, the opposite is true. I want to take this opportunity to clear up that confusion.

"As you may know, and some of this is more than a lot of you want to know, the NCAA revised its bylaws several years ago to eliminate the status known as partial qualifier, leaving only two classes of student athletes: qualifier and non qualifier, which are determined based on a student athlete's high school academic credentials.

"This spring, the conference revised its bylaws effective August the 1st of this year to maintain standards more stringent than the NCAA standards governing the enrollment of non qualifiers. In addition to modifying the labels describing a student athlete's initial eligibility status, the NCAA's initial eligibility index was extended to include the full range of possible standardized test scores. A 2.0 high school GPA was established as the minimum for a student athlete to be a qualifier, and the number of required high school core courses was increased, first from 13 to 14, and now to the new requirement of 16.

"It is inappropriate to associate this legislative change with any individual student athlete or prospective student athlete. Rather the revision is based on the need to update SEC rules to properly reflect new NCAA standards and to ensure accommodation of individuals challenged by learning disabilities.

"These revised bylaws, known to most of us as Proposal 1, make it clear that only a limited number of recruited student athletes who are non qualifiers at the time of enrollment at an SEC institution may become eligible to compete in the SEC and that each of those limited number of student athletes may become eligible only if he or she presents an average high school GPA of at least 2.0 as certified by the NCAA and at least 12 core courses. The institution submits a special report to the conference known as Proposal 9A, and a prospective student athlete who was a non qualifier and who does not meet these standards can enroll as a first year student in the SEC at an institution in our league, but cannot later become eligible for SEC competition.

"Another path to eligibility is available for such a student athlete, however. He or she can enroll in junior college and become eligible as a transfer student. For those interested in more, we have prepared a document comparing the old and new provision of SEC Bylaw 14.3, and that's available to you outside on the table after we finish."

I imagine that's more than you'd ever want to read about the process, but it could be of great importance going forward. It will be interesting to see how the league deals with some of the kids in situations like Powe's. How do you let one in and not the next? It could become a mess.

Working ahead

Sylvester Croom was just talking about how the recruiting process has accelerated these days and he pointed out that everything seems to have accelerated. He said he was actually working on his team's 2010 depth chart last night. That's an interesting little nugget. We're often so short-sighted about what's about to happen in the upcoming year, but a coach can't afford to be.

Well that was a surprise

I'm not 100 percent sure on this, but I believe there were zero Jesus references in Tim Tebow's time on the podium. I'll tell you, it's possible that he's the most overexposed athlete in SEC history, but I don't know how someone can possibly dislike the kid.

Like I just told a friend of mine, it's annoying how unannoying he is. It's almost like you'd like to find out about just one thing that's wrong with him so you'd know he's human. As it stands, I believe he's a football-playing robot constructed in some Fellowship of Christian Athletes laboratory.

Gators go first

Urban Meyer just left the podium, concluding the first coach's session on stage. That seemed like the longest Q/A session I've heard at one of these things.
Among the things he covered:
* Lots and lots of Tebow. That was a shock.
* Running back Chris Rainey recently outran freshman signee Jeff Demps in a footrace. That's significant because Demps recently ran the fastest 100-meter dash ever recorded by an American teenager at the U.S. Olympic Trials last month (10.01 seconds).
* He said Percy Harvin is about 80-90 percent healthy, which is ahead of schedule from
where doctors expected at this point.

Tebow should be coming up to the podium in a couple minutes. I'll set the over/under of Jesus references at four. I'm taking the over.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Pawlowski names two assistants

In case you missed it, Auburn sent out a release today announcing that new baseball coach John Pawlowski has named two assistant coaches. Both of them, pitching coach Scott Foxhall and hitting coach Matt Heath, were assistants under Pawlowski at College of Charleston.

Foxhall actually played a year at Auburn as a walk-on before transferring to COC, where he lettered from 1992-94. He coached at COC for nine years and also served as recruiting coordinator.

Interestingly, Heath played in the SEC as a college player at two different schools. He played at Florida in 1999-00 and at LSU in 2001-02 and was an All-SEC Tournament performer in both 01 and 02 before signing a pro contract and playing in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization for two years.

Link

AU adds Ball State in '09

Like I mentioned earlier, I wasn't around the computer all day, but here's another little nugget you've probably seen already. Auburn will play Ball State on Sept. 26, 2009 at Jordan-Hare. Ball State announced it in a press release on Monday. It's a one-and-done deal. With non-conference games against West Virginia, Furman and Ball State, there's still one more game on Auburn's 2009 schedule that is unannounced.

Link

Monday, July 21, 2008

Auburn puts eight on Coaches All-SEC team

I imagine you might have seen this by now, but I haven't been home since the list was released until now. So Auburn was tied with Alabama and South Carolina for fourth in the SEC with eight players on the Coaches All-SEC team. LSU had 14, Florida had 10 and Georgia had nine.

Here's a link with the entire list of the three all-SEC teams.

We'll vote on the media all-SEC team this week at Media Days and that list will be released Friday.

FIRST TEAM
DT Sen'Derrick Marks
P Ryan Shoemaker

SECOND TEAM
OL Tyronne Green
OL Lee Ziemba
RB Ben Tate
LB Tray Blackmon

THIRD TEAM
DL Antonio Coleman
DB Jerraud Powers

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Carnell injury update

Was just playing around on the 'Net and came across this post from a couple of days ago on the St. Pete Times' Tampa Bay Bucs beat blog. It concerns where things stand with Carnell Williams' recovery from the serious knee injury he suffered last September.

Looks like he'll start training camp on the physically unable to perform list and may even remain there when the season starts, in which case he'd have to spend at least the first six weeks of the season on PUP. I'm sure they're not going to rush things with him. Being back close to 100 percent a year after the injury might be a bit of a long shot.

Link

Here's the most relevant portion:
"Williams' continued recovery will be one of the stories we'll be watching intently during training camp. If he truly is as close to resuming his career as he has indicated, the Bucs will perhaps have to make some tough decisions about their stable of running backs, one that already includes Warrick Dunn, Michael Bennett and Earnest Graham.

If Williams -- who suffered a torn patellar tendon last September -- remains on the PUP list once the regular season begins, additional restrictions take effect. He must remain there for at least the first six weeks, after which the team would have a three-week window in which to evaluate the player in practices and decide whether to activate him."

Friday, July 18, 2008

Whatever happened to Chris Porter?

A commenter on a previous post asked that question today and it got me wondering as well. He definitely reached cult hero status while I was in school and has kind of disappeared in a way since he got cut by the Charlotte Hornets...so since I didn't have a lot to do this afternoon, I did a little looking.

His wikipedia page says that he has played in numerous leagues in the U.S. and overseas, played for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the USBL and has won a couple of championships in various locations. Currently he's playing in the Chinese Basketball League for the Fujian Sturgeons. Incidentally, the coach of the team is J.T. Prada, who coached at South Alabama when I was in high school in Mobile. While looking for Porter, I noticed that another top player in the league is former Auburn forward Brandon Robinson, who averaged 23 points and 11 rebounds per game last year for the Shanxi Dongshen Kylins before moving to play in Korea in February. Robinson is playing for the Portland Trail Blazers' summer league team right now.

I even found video of a Porter game from last season. He's on the white team. I'll let you figure out which one he is (OK, he's No. 20, not that it's too tough to pick him out, even without the fro).
First half
Second half

So there's your Chris Porter update. It's a shame he didn't make it in the NBA because he was an electrifying talent. It's good to see he's playing somewhere and having success, though. Considering his past issues, however, and after having seen most of this movie recently on HBO, I'd recommend that Chris never play on a team based in Bali.

Here's a memorable video of him from back in his glory days.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Three SEC QBs on O'Brien watch list

There are three SEC quarterbacks -- Florida's Tim Tebow, Georgia's Matthew Stafford and Alabama's John Parker Wilson -- among the 31 players on the watch list for the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award. Semifinalists will be announced Oct. 27 and the finalists on Nov. 24.

Here's the full list:
Todd Boeckman SR Ohio State
Sam Bradford SO Oklahoma
Tom Brandstater SR Fresno State
Hunter Cantwell SR Louisville
Rudy Carpenter SR Arizona State
Jimmy Clausen SO Notre Dame
Chase Clement SR Rice
Chase Daniel SR Missouri
Sean Glennon SR Virginia Tech
Matt Grothe JR South Florida
Max Hall JR BYU
Cullen Harper SR Clemson
Graham Harrell SR Texas Tech
Chase Holbrook SR New Mexico State
Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada SR Navy
Dan LeFevour JR Central Michigan
Jake Locker JR Washington
Colt McCoy JR Texas
Curtis Painter SR Purdue
Todd Reesing JR Kansas
Mark Sanchez JR USC
Riley Skinner JR Wake Forest
Rusty Smith JR Florida Atlantic
Matthew Stafford JR Georgia
Tim Tebow JR Florida
Mike Teel SR Rutgers
Willie Tuitama SR Arizona
Drew Weatherford SR Florida State
Pat White SR West Virginia
Juice Williams JR Illinois
John Parker Wilson SR Alabama

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Notes from basketball, swimming

I listened to a good portion of the SEC men's basketball coaches summer teleconference today. Can't say there was a ton of weighty stuff on there, but I turned around a story about Jeff Lebo's thoughts on the National Association of Basketball Coaches' request that coaches stop offering scholarships and accepting commitments from players before they complete their sophomore year of high school. It will be in Thursday's Ledger-Enquirer.

Here are a couple of notes from Lebo's 10 minutes or so:
* He's not sure Josh Dollard will be ready for the start of the season. Dollard missed all of last season with an undisclosed medical condition and now he's dealing with a back injury he sustained early in the summer.
"We hope (he'll be ready at the start of the year)," Lebo said. "Each day that goes by, he’s a little bit closer, but nothing new on his status right now."
* He said they're "still working" on getting some of their '08 signees into school, but "we don’t anticipate having any problems of working on some guys getting in school."
* Lebo addressed the new distance in the men's game from the 3-point line, 20 feet, 9 inches -- a full foot back from where it was last year. He likes the change, but doesn't think it will have much effect on attempts or percentages.
"I don’t think the move back is gonna make a huge deal as to who shoots them for us," he said. "It may make a difference who shoots them for some other teams, but for our kids, I don’t think it’s gonna make a big difference."
* Coincidentally, Auburn's getting a transfer from Indiana named Brandon McGee. Auburnsports.com did a story on it here. Tom Crean kicked McGee off the Hoosiers' team in May for academic and team guideline reasons. Here's the wire story on that.

Also, I did a phone interview today with former Auburn swimmer Margaret Hoelzer, the new world record holder in the women's 200-meter backstroke. I wasn't aware of this, but she and 2004 200 back gold medalist Kirsty Coventry are former roommates at Auburn, who started there together as freshmen. Basically today they're the two best women's swimmers in the world in the event, as the world record Hoelzer broke earlier this month at the Olympic Trials belonged to Coventry. I'm no mathematician, but I'd have to think the odds of two college roommates going on to be the two top competitors in the world in something would be astronomical.

I'll be doing a story on the two of them later, but I asked Margaret about her former Auburn teammate Eric Shanteau as well. I'm sure most of you saw the story about how he was diagnosed with testicular cancer just before the Olympic Trials, but still qualified for the Olympics and will swim in Beijing before beginning treatment. It's pretty amazing. Anyway, here's what she had to say about him:

"We swam together for five years and he’s an amazing guy. He’s one of the hardest workers that I’ve ever known. I’ve always been inspired by watching him train and just watching what a tough guy he is. Obviously finding out that he had cancer was devastating. You don’t want that to happen to anybody, especially such a nice person. But that being said, he is one of the toughest people I know and I wouldn’t expect him to handle the situation any differently. If there is anybody that can compete with something like that, if there is anyone that can handle it, he’s such a tough guy to begin with that I’m completely in awe of him. He’s a great guy."

Auburn adds Furman in '09

Just heard about this. Auburn will host I-AA Furman on Nov. 7, 2009 at Jordan-Hare Stadium. According to the brief I saw from AP, it will be the first of three straight seasons Furman visits an SEC team. They'll play South Carolina in 2010 and Florida in 2011.

Furman visits Virginia Tech this year on Sept. 6.

Linkage

Thoughts on recruiting rankings

All the Auburn recruiting Web sites reported yesterday on Auburn picking up its 20th commitment for its 2009 recruiting class in Mississippi athlete Jamie Collins. If you're keeping count, that's 10 commitments since the start of June. At this rate, they might catch Ohio State (they've got 24) soon for the most in the nation.

I have to admit I'm extremely intrigued by the Auburn coaching staff's philosophy with this recruiting class. They're not sitting back and letting some recruiting site's star system dictate (more to the fans than to them, obviously) who they should be recruiting. They're identifying who they want, they're offering them and they're getting commitments from them.

I love taking shots at those recruiting sites as much as anybody, often because the people writing for them tend to be fanboy clowns, but I can't deny that their star system is a very good indicator of what lies ahead for a program. It's certainly not a rule that a highly rated recruiting class yields huge results -- and plenty of people have written about how recruiting rankings mean nothing -- but it's at the very least a trend.

On one hand, you have this note, which I wrote about on my old Georgia blog:
Twenty of the 31 first-round picks in the NFL draft received a three-star grade or below, while only 11 were rated either four or five stars coming out of high school. In total, there were three non-rated players picked in the first round, nine two-star players, eight three-star players, seven four-star players and four five-star players.

But it turns out that's kind of a deceptive statistic -- statistics can often be that way -- simply when you consider there are so few recruits who are given five-star grades. A five-star player has like a 1-in-9 or 1-in-10 shot of eventually being named an all-American. Those are pretty decent odds.

And check this out. Thanks to the exhaustive analysis of the subject on Sunday Morning Quarterback, an excellent blog, we see that there's a pretty strong correlation between recruiting ranking and success on the field. Here are the top 20 BCS teams between 2002 and 2007 based on winning percentage against BCS opposition. The "Rank" column is their cumulative recruiting ranking from Rivals.com. for the time period.
(click on the link above if you want to see an easier-to-read version of this chart. I'm too dumb to figure out how to put tabs in this thing).

RankTeam Record Win % Rank Difference
1. Southern Cal 63-8 .887 1 -
2 Ohio State 54-11 .831 12 + 10
3 Oklahoma 54-13 .806 3 -
4 Texas 48-12 .800 7 + 3
5 Georgia 52-15 .776 2 -3
6 LSU 48-15 .762 5 -1
7 Auburn 46-17 .730 10 + 3
8 Louisville 31-13 .705 48 + 40
9 Michigan 45-19 .703 11 + 2
10 W. Virginia 40-18 .690 44 + 34
11 Virginia Tech 41-20 .672 30 + 19
12 Miami 40-22 .645 8 -4
13 Florida 40-23 .635 4 -9
14 Wisconsin 38-22 .633 45 + 31
15 Boston Coll. 35-21 .625 41 + 26
16 California 38-23 .623 18 + 2
17 Iowa 39-24 .619 39 + 21
18 Florida State 44-28 .611 6 -12
19 Tennessee 38-25 .603 9 -10
20 Virginia 37-25 .597 19 -1

Basically, Auburn has the seventh-best record against BCS schools between 2002-07 at 46-17. Their average recruiting rank in that time was 10, meaning they've performed three spots better than their recruiting rank. Right behind Auburn in eighth is Louisville, which had an average recruiting ranking of 48 -- so the Cardinals outperformed their recruiting ranking moreso than any other BCS program in the nation.

Just for fun, the greatest underperformers among BCS schools based on recruiting rankings? Interestingly, SEC schools South Carolina, Ole Miss and Mississippi State have totals that are among the four worst. And four SEC schools, when you include Alabama, rank among the nine most underperforming BCS teams based on their recruiting rankings.
36. Alabama (-20)
45. South Carolina (-32)
47. Texas A&M (-33)
54. Ole Miss (-30)
56. North Carolina (-29)
57. Washington (-24)
58. Arizona (-29)
60. Illinois (-20)
64. Mississippi State (-29)

And the greatest overperformers?
8. Louisville (+40)
10. West Virginia (+34)
14. Wisconsin (+31)
23. Georgia Tech (+31)
34. Wake Forest (+30)

Interesting thought

I wrote a story today about former Auburn commit Brandon Monk, who was picked by the Atlanta Braves in the 2005 draft. Along with three fellow members of the 1999 Phenix City National Little League team that won the U.S. championship and finished as the runner-up at the LLWS, Monk committed to Auburn with Colby Rasmus, Bryan Woodall and Zack Martin in the early signing period of fall 2004.

You folks that follow MLB closely probably know that Rasmus is generally considered the top prospect in the St. Louis Cardinals organization and one of the top prospects in baseball. Woodall just started a pro career after being drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Monk was picked by the Braves in the seventh round, but was released after three years in their farm system. And Martin didn't stick with Auburn and wound up transferring to Andrew College.

Can you imagine what might have happened with the Tigers if all of those guys had actually come to Auburn together and stuck? They were part of an early signing class that included Evan Crawford, Mike Bianucci and Luke Greinke, among others. If that foursome from the Phenix City LLWS team actually came to Auburn -- and yeah, I know it was a longshot with Colby, who was a first-round draft pick -- it's interesting to wonder what might have happened with Tom Slater's teams in the last year or two.

At any rate, the story about Monk is interesting because he's actually going back to college to play for Columbus State, which is one of the best Division II programs in the country. I didn't even realize such a thing was possible, but when a player flames out after a brief minor-league career, the NCAA will actually allow them to go back to play college ball. Since Monk has been out of high school for three years, the NCAA treats it as three years of exhausted eligibility. He'll have to sit out a year at CSU this year and take classes and then he'll be able to play only one season with the Cougars next season. He plans to move from middle infield, where he played in his career with the Braves, to catcher and then aim for another shot at pro ball after playing at CSU in the 2009-10 season. It would be a great story to see him get another crack at pro ball and see where he can go. He seems to be a nice kid.

Here's the story.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Cotton joins Elite 11 field

Auburn commit Raymond Cotton was one of the players selected today for the prestigious Elite 11 quarterback camp -- essentially making him one of the top 11 QB prospects in the class of 2009. Actually, he's one of several SEC commits to be included in this bunch, including A.J. McCarron (Alabama, who attends my alma mater, by the way), Zach Mettenberger (Georgia) and Aaron Murray (also Georgia).

They'll camp in Southern California from July 21-24, compete and receive instruction from a host of star instructors, including Chase Daniel (Missouri), Colt McCoy (Texas), Curtis Painter (Purdue), Bobby Reid (Texas Southern), Mark Sanchez (USC) and Matt Stafford (Georgia).

Here are the players who were selected, out of a field of approximately 1,000 QBs:
Tajh Boyd (Phoebus High School – Hampton, Va.)
Richard Brehaut (Los Osos High School - Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.)
Allan Bridgford (Mission High School – Viejo, Calif.)
Raymond Cotton (Meade High School - Fort Meade, Md.)
Garrett Gilbert (Lake Travis High School – Austin, Texas)
Andrew Maxwell (Midland High School - Midland, Mich.)
AJ Mccarron (St. Paul's High School – Mobile, Ala.)
Zach Mettenberger (Oconee County High School – Watkinsville, Ga.)
Aaron Murray (Plant High School – Tampa, Fla.)
Bryn Renner (West Springfield High School - Lorton, Va.)
Tom Savage (Cardinal O'Hara High School - Springfield, Pa.)
Eugene Smith (Miramar High School - Miramar, Fla.)

Media Days schedule

I'm up fairly early today, so I figure I might as well post a little information about the upcoming Media Days (it's just eight days away). And just for fun, my guess as to what might be the most frequently written stories from each day...

Wednesday, July 23
1:10 Florida (Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow, Phil Trautwein)
1:10 Mississippi State (Sylvester Croom, Wesley Carroll, Jamar Cheney)
3:10 LSU (Les Miles, Brett Helms, Tyson Jackson)
3:10 Vanderbilt (Bobby Johnson, Reshard Langford, George Smith)
Prediction: Lots of Tebow love on this day. I'll bet my life they even set him up at the front podium in the big media room (like they did with Darren McFadden last year) rather than at the side tables like they do with most all of the players. Interestingly enough, Florida's bringing two offensive players, which pretty much goes along with the 2007 Gators' philosophy that you don't actually have to play defense to win. There'll also be a significant number of LSU stories, mostly about how they'll fare with Jarrett Lee at QB instead of Ryan Perrilloux. But Tebow rules the day.

Thursday, July 24
8:40 Alabama (Nick Saban, Antoine Caldwell, Rashad Johnson)
8:40 Georgia (Mark Richt, Mohamed Massaquoi, Jeff Owens)
10:40 Ole Miss (Houston Nutt, Peria Jerry, Michael Oher)
10:40 Tennessee (Phil Fulmer, Arian Foster, Adam Myers-White)
Prediction: They loaded a bunch of interesting stuff into this day. Of course it starts with Saban mania, and I'd imagine a significant amount of ink will be devoted to how the Tide will perform in Year 2 of The Process. There'll be some stuff thrown at Georgia's kids about national title expectations, but they picked two good guys to bring in Massaquoi and Owens because I'm pretty certain neither of them will say anything crazy. And then you've got the Houston Nutt first-year-on-the-job angle from Oxford and defending SEC East champ Tennessee. So mostly Saban with a sprinkling of stuff from a couple of teams that should be a good bit better than Bama this year.

Friday, July 25
8:40 Auburn (Tommy Tuberville, Jason Bosley, Sen'Derrick Marks)
8:40 Kentucky (Rich Brooks, Jeremy Jarmon, Dicky Lyons)
10:40 Arkansas (Bobby Petrino, Elston Forte, Jonathan Luigs)
10:40 South Carolina (Steve Spurrier, Jasper Brinkley, Kenny McKinley)
Prediction: Count on most of the hackiest columnists going with the juxtapositioning of Tommy Tuberville being followed by Bobby Petrino on Friday. It's an easy angle. I'm sure we'll hear more than enough of that the week of Oct. 11, when Petrino's Hogs come to Auburn, as well. So you'll have that, some more about Petrino and what Arkansas will do on offense and then they'll bring out the closer, Steve Spurrier. You can write whole stories with just the amusing things he'll say from the podium. He's pretty much the star of the show every year and I'd be surprised if things are any different next week.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Dupay facing rape charges

I don't know how I missed this, but former Florida guard Teddy Dupay is apparently going to stand trial for rape, assault and kidnapping in Utah.

I'll always remember him from being on the Gator team that kicked the bejeezus out of Auburn in the first game after Chris Porter was suspended for taking cash from an agent in 2000. Didn't Auburn go on to beat them in the SEC tourney that year? Those years are a bit foggy by this point.

Link

Sunday, July 13, 2008

UGA's Lemon dismissed

Saw today where Georgia sophomore defensive end Michael Lemon was kicked off their football team today. It's not a surprise move since he has been charged with felony battery after allegedly beating the snot out of some guy at a party. But it's a sad story nonetheless.

You might remember that his mother, to whom he was very close, was murdered about a year ago. Her ex-boyfriend is accused of killing her and setting their home on fire -- I think that trial starts sometime soon -- and Georgia put together a fund to help Michael and his 17-year-old brother financially.

Anyway, what happened to Lemon's mother doesn't excuse his behavior, but it does make you feel for the kid. I can't imagine how I'd react if something like that had happened to my mother. Particularly at his age.

Mark Richt released a statement today about the situation. Here's his quote:
"He’s been dismissed as a result of some poor decisions and conduct that is not in line with standards we have in place at Georgia. I have had discussions with Michael and he understands the decision. He expressed a desire to find a path back to the team at some point but that’s a decision that will depend on several factors and will come at a later date.”

I assume the most significant factor will be the outcome of his court case. If he's convicted of a felony, it would surprise me to see him play for Georgia again.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

An introduction

Hi there, I'm David Ching, the new Auburn beat writer for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. This will be my first year covering the Tigers, but I'm a long way from a novice when it comes to Auburn sports. Growing up in Mobile, my parents raised me as an Auburn fan and I received my journalism degree from the school about a decade ago.

Don't get me wrong, though, while I was raised on the Pat Dye teams winning league titles and went to school at AU while Dameyune Craig was leading the Tigers to their first appearance in the SEC Championship Game, I have no intention of being a homer. The only way you earn respect as a beat writer is by being objective, and I have every intention of being critical when the situation calls for it. My job absolutely comes first and I plan to call things like I see them, even if it makes Auburn people (including my friends and family) angry sometimes.

Anyway, I guess I should tell you a bit about my background. I wrote for the Plainsman for a couple of years before I graduated from Auburn in 1999. The paper's archives are unfortunately littered with perfectly mediocre A&E material authored by yours truly. I apologize. I started working as a sports writer in 2000 and caught on with the Columbus paper in 2004. I've covered UGA sports for the last two years and was given a Heisman Trophy vote last year (I voted Tebow-McFadden-Daniel, just so you know). I think I still have the vote, so we'll get to more from that discussion later this year when it gets closer to time to make my choice.

While covering Georgia, I discovered that the best way I'd make a mark on the beat was by being a prolific blogger. By that I mean I put out a substantially greater inch count than any other writer on the beat. I plan to transcribe interviews and post Q&As and give detailed updates and observations every single day during football season, and then let you know plenty about Auburn's other sports as well. If you're looking for volume, this will be your place. I truly enjoy covering SEC sports and getting to know the players and coaches, and I hope you'll enjoy reading some of the stuff I post here.

I'm not one to post those pandering questions asking for your opinions on things very often -- I think that's kind of a hacky beat blog fallback -- but I look forward to receiving your input. Always feel free to drop me a line with questions, comments or suggestions. The UGA fans who followed my blog can attest that I'm willing to ask their questions to the right people when they have merit. I believe part of my job as a beat writer is being an intermediary between the program and the readership (and part of it is to tell you things the program might not want you to know, as well). I want to fill you in about the things you want to know. So let me know. This should be a lot of fun...
David

Friday, July 11, 2008

Just around the corner

Auburn released a tentative preseason football schedule today. The Tigers are scheduled to report on Friday, Aug. 1 and will hold their first practice of the season the following day in helmets. That Saturday will also be the team's fan day.

Once they get started, the team is slated to practice every single day until the first day of classes on the 18th, including four sessions of two-a-day practices.

It's just three weeks away...

Fri., Aug. 1--Players Report
Sat., Aug. 2--First Practice (hats); Fan Day 3-5 p.m.

Sun., Aug. 3--Practice
Mon., Aug. 4--Practice (shells)
Tue., Aug. 5--Practice
Wed., Aug. 6--Practice (pads)
Thu., Aug. 7--Two Practices
Fri., Aug. 8--Practice
Sat., Aug. 9--Practice (Graduation)

Sun., Aug. 10--Practice
Mon., Aug. 11--Two Practices
Tue., Aug. 12--Practice
Wed., Aug. 13--Two Practices
Thur., Aug. 14--Practice
Fri., Aug. 15--Two Practices
Sat., Aug. 16--Practice

Sun., Aug. 17--Practice
Mon., Aug. 18--OFF (First Day of Class)
Tue., Aug. 19--Practice
Wed., Aug. 20--Practice
Thur., Aug. 21--Practice
Fri., Aug. 22--Practice
Sat., Aug. 23--OFF

Week of Aug. 24...Regular game-week set-up

AU Olympic swimmer has cancer

This is a pretty incredible story about former Auburn swimmer Eric Shanteau, who only recently qualified for the Olympics shortly after discovering he has testicular cancer. Amazing stuff.