Auburn might be ranked heading into the season, but quarterback Cam Newton said the Tigers still feel like underdogs.

"No doubt," Auburn's starting quarterback said. "Any time you turn on the TV or turn on the sports talk radio show or anywhere, they're talking about the other team."

Newton was referring to Alabama, which enters the season ranked No. 1 in the country after winning last season's national championship. Auburn, which went 8-5 in Gene Chizik's first year, is ranked No. 22 in the preseason Associated Press poll and No. 23 in the USA Today Coaches' poll.

"Of course we know that they're an excellent team as well," Newton said. "We feel like we're not being mentioned as we should be."

Newton didn't have an answer for why he thinks that is. But he's not concerned about it.

"We're just going to do what we're coached to do, and our No. 1 thing to do is win," he said. "And I guess if you win games, you'll silence all the critics."

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Here are some more notes and quotes from Sunday night's interviews:

• The Tigers are off Monday before resuming practice Tuesday evening. It will be the first full day of game preparation.

• Chizik thinks the team is itching to get the season started. "They’re tired of playing against each other, that’s for sure," he said. "That two-week window we talked about yesterday. It’s kind of that game. You’re seeing game on TV, you’re seeing NFL every weekend, and it’s time. It’s time to start preparing for the season in terms of opponents. I think they’re ready, they’re excited about it. I know coaching-wise we are."

• Chizik said the team still has not named a starting right tackle among John Sullen, A.J. Greene and Brandon Mosley. "That’ll probably be happening by Tuesday or Wednesday of this week," Chizik said. "I hate to put a deadline on something because there other variables in there, but we’d like to do it as soon as we could."

• Sullen thinks the competition has been healthy. "It just comes down to the point where we’re like, ‘OK, we’re friends and whoever wins the position battle, that’s not going to change that,’" Sullen said. "We’re going to stay friends. But we both have the mentality that coach (Jeff) Grimes is going to pick the best person. So that won’t even play a factor in it."

• No movement on the backup quarterback either. "I haven’t really put a lot of emphasis on that part of it because all of them have done a great job competing," Chizik said. "That’s something we’re definitely going to talk about because we have to pare those reps down, we know that. I don’t think I’ll use Tuesday as a landmark for that. But we feel really good about that backup position."

• After four injury-plagued seasons and three knee surgeries, senior guard Bart Eddins finally feels healthy. “Physically it’s probably the best I’ve been in two or three years,” he said. Eddins, a fifth-year senior who has appeared in 26 games and started one, has gone more than a year and a half since his last knee surgery, the date of which he can recite in an instant — Jan. 28, 2009. He sat out part of the spring after getting dinged up, but he’s avoided much down time this August. “When practice starts going and it starts bothering me real bad, they usually check up on me,” he said. “Or they say, if it starts to bother you real bad, just let us know. We’ll cut down on stuff. Sometimes I’m just riding the bike in practice. They’ve really helped out with modifying how much my knee gets worked, so therefore it doesn’t really swell up or get real bad.”

• Eddins knows finding playing time on an offensive line that returns four starters, including both guards, will be tough, but he’s fine with that. “My approach was to work hard like I was trying to start,” he said. “And if I didn’t get a starting job to be there and just help teach the younger guys that are coming up and to also be there for the starters if any of them are hurt.”

• Auburn has no established center behind Ryan Pugh, but redshirt freshman Blake Burgess would like to be the guy. Burgess, a redshirt freshman from Vestavia Hills, Ala., has packed on 50 pounds in the last year, going from 230 to 280. “I eat like crazy,” he said. “I’m trying to eat about six to eight times a day.”

• Burgess has worked some at guard to help Auburn create some depth and to get used to pulling, something he never did in high school. He and Jared Cooper have worked at the backup center spot, with an eye on the future. “I really look at it as an opportunity to learn from a senior offensive line that has done it all,” Burgess said. “They’ve been through a lot together, so it’s really inspiring, and I hope that next year if I get a chance to compete for that starting position, that I can draw on what they leave behind.”

• Chizik did another roll call of young players who stood out in Saturday's scrimmage: S Demetruce McNeal, S Ryan Smith, WR/HB Shaun Kitchens, CB Chris Davis and LB Harris Gaston.

• Freshman CB Ryan White, who dabbled at quarterback to start camp, is a little behind. "I think so because of the timing of the move," Chizik said. "But he’s a talented young guy."

• Running back Mario Fannin on his backups, Onterio McCalebb and Michael Dyer. "I feel like they're great backs," he said. "They have a lot of learning to do -- just like I do. Onterio brings speed and Mike brings both -- he's an inside runner and an outside runner. They're both going to help a lot in the long run."

• Fannin doesn't think Dyer, ESPN's top-ranked running back recruit last year, is cocky. "He's just confident," Fannin said. "He should be, especially when you're good and you can help your teammates out."

• There's a lot of talk that Newton's junior college numbers are more a factor of him being physically superior to his opponents. He refuted that idea Sunday. "I wouldn't say that," he said. "I just think there are a lot of players in junior college that have the capability of being Division I players, they just don't have the shot or the opportunity. You get people getting scholarship offers from junior college that they would never have got out of high school, so the coaches still look at junior college players. The talent is there."

• Newton was asked about the talent at Auburn vs. what was at Florida when he was there. He gave a very diplomatic answer while displaying some confidence. "We're not backing down," he said. "This year we've got this type of swagger about us that we're not scared." A reporter mentioned that the Gators aren't on the Tigers' schedule, so he didn't have to hold anything back, to which Newton retorted: "We have a chance to meet them in Atlanta if we do our job."