Here's what
Gene Chizik had to say in his weekly Sunday teleconference:
- Auburn brought 27 guys to Tennessee who had never played in a college road football game before.
- On Auburn's ranking in the polls: "I'm really happy for our football team. We've worked really hard to get to this point. And I'm happy to see that someone recognizes it. But we don't spend a whole lot of time and energy on that."
- "think it was more verification than anything. And the verification was similar to what we learned at home. We're going to pay for 60 minutes."
- "It was neat to see that there wasn't a whole lot of difference with how we played on the road versus how we played at home."
- "We would have liked to play better run defense than we did last night all the way around."
- Chizik has five wins at Auburn. He had five in two years at Iowa State, but that doesn't matter to him. "That's not how I look at things at all."
- Back to the polls. On what it does for the program: "Obviously it's great. The higher the better and all that good stuff. But we've only played five games, so it's somewhat insignificant in some ways. ... We don't pay a lot of attention to it."
- On how he feels about his team's chances in a given week: "I think we have a chance to win every game we play. I would hope a head coach wouldn't come out and say otherwise."
- Chizik said Auburn takes things one day at a time: "We try to climb the mountain week-by-week and day-by-day."
- He's glad Chris Todd hasn't turned the ball over much this year. It's helped them win games.
- On the defense: "I don't know if it was our best or not, but we took some strides in the right direction." He thought Tennessee was a very physical offensive line.
- Auburn played in from of 102,000 fans Saturday. Now it's going to Arkansas. "I think it's a big help. Any time you can just get a game under your belt where you can travel period, coupled with the fact that it was at Tennessee, it can't do anything but help your team."
- Auburn gave up over 200 yards in the fourth quarter to Tennessee. "When you know your opponent has to score three times to win, you don't want to give the game away by doing some silly things. ... Most of the night I thought we played much better defense than we have previously."
- "We're not looking at numbers and stats."
- On the TD at the final gun: "You would have preferred not to see that, but it is what it is."
- Thought the defense played "really, really well all night." Team was best it was on third downs. "We were finding some ways to get off the field."
- On if he know Bobby Petrino would be a successful head coach: "Without question. He's one of the best in the business. He's very precise. He knows exactly what he wants. He's setting you up for the next thing."
- Chizik knows Petrino from his time at Auburn, by the way.
- On Bart Eddins: "Really proud of Bart. No. 1, because he's really overcome some health issues. He played with them Saturday night. They didn't just go away. He came in there and played and just really proud that he was able to step up."
- On the blocked PAT: "Every day we're in pads, we work the heck out of that. It's not a down off."
- Philip Pierre-Louis got a chance to return punts because Anthony Gulley got banged up on kick coverage.
- Chizik said it was encouraging that Pierre-Louis looked comfortable catching the ball. "Alls we asked was just let us keep the ball," Chizik said.
- They'll work on PR again this week. Chizik didn't say he'd stick with either returner.
- On not knowing if LB Adam Herring would even be a factor before the season: "It was a guessing game. ... It's been good to see him come through and help us, because he has."
- On finally playing an afternoon game at Arkansas: "Just got to wake up earlier and play."
- On RB Eric Smith's reaction to finding out he wouldn't be with the team for a while: "He was crushed, but he understood the reasons behind it." Chizik said he's done everything Auburn has asked of him. "He's a better Auburn man than he was then," Chizik said.
- "He's a guy that we've got a lot of trust in being able to do two or three things right now and do well." Chizik said that doesn't even included Smith's contributions on special teams. "He's a clutch guy," Chizik said. "He brings a lot to our table on the offense."
- On injured QB Barrett Trotter making the road trip: "He does some things with the signaling. That's his role on the road."
- On S Daren Bates: "You can see he's gaining a comfort level every week." Bates played well on the road: "He didn't flinch. He was focused and locked in and ready to play."
- Didn't say if Eddins would start next week or if Byron Isom will be back.
- On PPL: "Philip is going to continue to work with us as a punt returner. Whether he plays or doesn't play, that will be day-to-day. That will be a work in progress as well."
- PPL has not worked in the offense yet.
- Chizik said PPL appears to be back health-wise.
2 comments:
Nice recap AB
What is this about Eric Smith not being with the team?
Post a Comment