AUBURN, Ala. — Ben Tate sheepishly admitted he might have said last week that he was the best running back in the state. A second later, he contradicted himself.

“Maybe I didn’t,” the Auburn running back said.

Whatever the case, Tate wasn’t nearly as emphatic Wednesday as when he was quoted by the Athens Banner-Herald last week.

“I know I’m the best back in the state,” he told the paper. “I bet if you went and broke down film and asked teams in the SEC who is the best back in the state, I mean I feel like it’s me.”

The statement raised a few eyebrows in Tuscaloosa, where Alabama running back Mark Ingram is turning in the type of year that has him near the top of almost every Heisman Trophy list.

Given a chance to clarify Wednesday, Tate was complimentary of Ingram, whose Crimson Tide travel to Jordan-Hare Stadium for the Iron Bowl the day after Thanksgiving.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: he’s a very good running back,” Tate said. “He’s having a great year. Their team is undefeated. He’s a great running back. I hope he wins the Heisman. Honestly, I’m serious when I say that because he’d be the first running back to win it since Reggie Bush, and I think he’s got the opportunity to do that.”

The two backs have comparable stats. Ingram, a sophomore, has 1,297 rushing yards, a 6.7-yard average and 10 touchdowns in 10 games. Tate, a senior, has 1,209 rushing yards, a 5.4-yard average and eight touchdowns in 11 games.

Both have six 100-yard games this season. Both rank in the top-20 nationally in rushing (Ingram’s fifth in yards per game; Tate’s 17th).

The biggest difference is in the teams’ records. Alabama is ranked No. 2 in the country with a 10-0 mark. Auburn is 7-4.

“His team is winning, they’re undefeated, so of course, he’s going to be talked about,” Tate said last week.

Auburn coach Gene Chizik thinks Tate has been a perfect back for the Tigers’ offense.
“He’s done so much for our football team in terms of being a guy that can run the ball inside and be physical, being a guy that get to the perimeter,” he said. “He’s run for over a thousand yards in different ways.”

Tate, who struggled throughout his junior season with only 664 rushing yards, has been pleased with the way his final year has played out.

“It’s definitely good to go out like this,” he said. “It’s finishing out pretty good and I couldn’t ask for much more besides a couple more wins. But I can end it with the opportunity to win the Iron Bowl. That’d be a good way to go out.”

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• Cornerback Walt McFadden promised last week to light up the message boards with some trash talk leading up to the Alabama game. He’s had a change of heart. “I think I have a new attitude now,” the boisterous fifth-year senior said. “I’m a changed man. Playing Alabama this week. It’s a big game. Those guys do it really good over there. Good team overall — defense, special teams and offense. They’re putting everything together so I can’t say anything bad about them because they’re doing what we’re supposed to be trying to get done.”

• McFadden, a noted trash-talker, said he and Georgia’s A.J. Green has some cordial conversation last Saturday before the receiver left with an injury. “He’s a good guy,” McFadden said. “Usually I talk a lot of trash on the field. I don’t know. It’s kind of weird. I came at him a little different. It’s like, ‘Hey man, I hear your lung’s bad.’ He’s just basically like, ‘Yeah man. I can’t breathe right now.’ I felt bad for him. I was like, ‘I hope you get better.’”

• McFadden will line up with Alabama wideout Julio Jones in the Iron Bowl. Asked who was better, he couldn’t help but give an opinion. “I like A.J. Green,” McFadden said. “He reminds me of a Randy Moss-type of receiver. Randy Moss, I’m a big fan of his. I compare those two as receivers, so I kind of have to slide toward A.J. Green.”

• Linebacker Eltoro Freeman was still in a walking boot Wednesday and did not practice. The sophomore reportedly suffered both an ankle injury and a concussion in last week’s loss to Georgia. Chizik had no definitive update about whether Freeman will be ready for the Iron Bowl.

• “That’ll be day by day,” Chizik said. With Freeman and sophomore Adam Herring (heel) both battling injuries, true freshman Jonathan Evans might get the nod as starting weak-side linebacker.

• Offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn thinks the bye week has been especially helpful, just from a mental standpoint. "I think it helps a lot," he said. "We have not had any off time at all, to get our guys to mentally refresh. We had some tired guys, there’s no doubt, physically and mentally so it’s good to refresh.As far as coaches, probably the same way. Anytime you’re playing a very good opponent, the more time you have to prepare, that will definitely help."

• Malzahn was peeved by all the penalties Auburn had against Georgia. The Tigers had six for 90 yards. Although not all of those were against the offense, Auburn was penalized a few times on its last-gasp drive, which ended with a turnover on downs. "Really, the penalties stood out," Malzahn said. "We’re trying to correct those. The discipline part. Just the overall execution of doing what we do. We’re trying to get those corrected before the next game."

• LT Lee Ziemba, a frequent offender on the penalty front, agreed. "They’re killing us. We’ve got to stop committing those errors. It’s all about the fundamentals. If you do the fundamentals right you’re not going to commit those penalties."

• Quarterback Chris Todd was asked to grade his performance this year. He dodged the question nicely: "It’s different week to week. You go in and there’s different things you work on, different corrections to make, different things you’ve done well. A lot of times I look at myself, ‘How we doing offensively?’ and if I’m helping things move and helping get things rolling and stuff. I don’t look at it as much individually as how we’re doing as a whole. So, at different times, you grade yourself out differently."

• Chizik was asked how he has evolved as a coach in the last 11 months. He dodged the question nicely as well: "I think as a head coach, certainly in your third year as being a head coach, I think you get better at some things and you identify some things that you can be more effective at. I think you probably look back when it's all over and probably be more accurate on assessing that. Right now I'm in the middle of everything. We'll look back at the end of the year and all of us will find a way to get better. It's hard for me to answer right now because I'm in the middle of everything."

• Tate wore No. 4 instead of his usual No. 44 last week to honor injured safety Zac Etheridge, who suffered a season-ending neck injury in October. He doesn't think he'll need to do it again in the Iron Bowl. "I think he's going to be here this game," Tate said. "He'll be able to hold down the 4."

• Interesting quotes from McFadden about when he first got to Auburn: "It was tough. I came in under Chizik. When I got here, though, it was David Gibbs. I was bigger than him. The first day, he asked me where I was going. He told me I was going to the NFL. Most coaches tell you that cornerbacks have to tackle. He still had that NFL mentality. He said: 'You don't get paid to tackle. You guard guys.' When I started guarding guys, Coach (Tommy Tuberville) jumped on me for not tackling. I didn't know who to listen to. It kinda got to me. Coach Tub said I wasn't going to play until I started tackling. Gibbs was telling me I didn't have to tackle. I was doing what my coach told me. It set me back."

• McFadden said Tate followed through on his promise to take the offensive linemen out to eat for blocking so well for him. Although he backed off a larger promise. "He didn't go out throughout the whole season," McFadden said. "He told them that every time he got more than 100 yards, he'd take them out to eat. I think that only occurred once. You know, Golden Corral is kind of high (priced)."

• Chizik was pleased with the play of Demond Washington, who has emerged as a do-all threat, playing safety, kick returner and punt returner. But is it too much on his plate? "He's one of those guys who is just a great athlete and he can go a long time. He can return kicks and go right to defense and right to punt returner. He can do those things. He's in great shape and that's another guy that loves football. He just wants to be on the field. He doesn't care where. He doesn't care if it's wideout . He doesn't care if it's safety or kick returner or tailback: he just wants to play. And he's just a great competitor. And I think he's really come on for our team."

• Count WR Kodi Burns as one player very impressed with Alabama's defense, which ranks third overall nationally in total yards and second in scoring. "I think the biggest thing you see is they intimidate people," he said. "They go out and they just out-physical people, they play really hard, really fast, fly to the ball and the biggest thing is they capitalize on any mistakes. The biggest thing is they capitalize on any mistakes. If you get a tipped ball, that’s six to the house. If you whiff on a block, that’s a sack of the quarterback possibly. You can’t let it happen because they definitely capitalize on mistakes."

• Plenty of players said the Iron Bowl is a different beast from other football games. Here's a sampling:

• Tate: "The intensity level rises a whole 'nother level. Like coach said, this game can definitely get personal. When I first got here, I really didn't understand the rivalry. Of course everybody knows about Alabama. But before Auburn started recruiting me, I didn't even know where Auburn was at. I didn't know about the school, I didn't know anything. So when I first got here the rivalry wasn't as big to me as it is now. Now it's kind of grown on me from being down here so long. But at the beginning it wasn't a big deal to me. I was just like, why's everybody getting so crazy about this game? I didn't understand it. After being around for a while, I understand it."

• Chizik: "I think there's an emotional factor at the beginning of the game. I think this is probably true in every rivalry, but just the emotion at the beginning I think is probably as intense as it gets. But again, as the quarters wear on, it's about execution. You can't play a whole game with that high that emotion. But in the three that I've been in, the emotions are very high, because it's a very physical game. And it's just a great rivalry, there's great build-up to it, there's a lot of great pageantry about the game. But I think at the end of the day a lot of that wears off and you have to execute and the team that wins is the one that does."

• Tate said last year's Iron Bowl loss -- a 36-0 blowout in Tuscaloosa -- was embarrassing. "Wow," he said. "That's all you can think to say is, wow. In the history of this game, I don't think there's ever been a team that got beat by 36 points and not score a touchdown or put up any points. It's pretty embarrassing to be a part of that. So we definitely want to redeem ourselves from that, just being embarrassed like that. Those six years in a row, it makes everybody forgot about that when you get beat 36-0."

• Ziemba agreed: "Since it was the last game of the season it was a terrible way to wrap up the year. That taste stuck in our mouth for a long time because we didn’t get back on the field for another nine months or so. It was pretty tough on us."

• Burns, the starting quarterback in last year's debacle, might have said it best: "We laid an egg last year. We had many problems last year, on and off the field. That, and many other games, you just kind of forget about. After that game we were all in disarray, but this year we feel like we’ve got our team back stable and everybody is healthy and doing good. We know we have a better chance this year."