Auburn began its Iron Bowl preparation in earnest today after players had Friday and Saturday off. Defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads said those two days off made a world of difference Sunday.

"I saw a fast football team today at practice, so I know the 50 hours from when we ended the last practice to today paid off," he said. "And I think as we take advantage of this extra time and scale down as the week goes along, it will pay off. I'm confident that we'll put as fast a football team on the field as we can Saturday."

A lot of talk about Auburn's six-game winning streak in the series -- the school's longest and the second-longest in Iron Bowl history -- but everyone claims it has no bearing on this year's game.

"I don't even think about the streak," defensive end Antonio Coleman said. "It's a whole other year. They're No. 1 and we're 5-6. When you go out and play ball, the streak doesn't matter. You have to come out and play this year."

Some other developments Sunday:

• PK Wes Byrum (inflamed right knee) kicked some short field goals during practice but head coach Tommy Tuberville said that doesn't mean Byrum will be the kicker come Saturday. If he can't go, sophomore Morgan Hull would handle Auburn's kicking.

• Rhoads was extremely complimentary of Alabama's offense, which comes across as pretty vanilla, but also pretty effective. The Crimson Tide is averaging 31.7 points and 198.5 rushing yards per game, trailing only Florida in the SEC in both categories."They’re playing great team football,” Tigers defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads said. “They’re very efficient with what they do.”

• Alabama's running game is the thing that impresses everybody the most. The Crimson Tide has rushed for 175 yards or more in seven of their 11 games this year, doing most of its damage with running back Glen Coffee, who has 1,091 yards and eight touchdowns and is averaging an SEC-best 6.1 yards per carry. "What stands out to me about the whole group is just their massive size and their ability to wear people down,” Rhoads said of Alabama's line. “They get stronger as the game goes along.”

• The talk came back to red zone woes again Sunday, where Auburn ranks 119th out of 119 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in efficiency. (I'm obligated by state law to refer to it as the "Dead Zone" for the purposes of this blog entry.) De facto offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger said he'd like to isolate running back Mario Fannin more to take advantage of the sophomore's one-on-one skills. I'll bet a lot of Auburn fans are wondering where that logic was last week, when Fannin didn't get on the field for the Tigers' final two drives in a 17-13 loss to Georgia.

• Sounds like Auburn has a busy week ahead of it. There are no classes, so the coaches get the players all week without interruption. It will almost be like 2-a-days for part of the week, with Wednesday being a full day. Tuberville said the team will have walkthroughs on Thanksgiving day, with plenty of eating on the intinerary. This was how he described the afternoon: "We'll watch a lot of film. There's nothing for them to do so we'll spend time over here, go through game plan, walk-through (and) eat two or three times." Now that's how I would draw up a Thanksgiving celebration, minus all the practicing.