I did Q&A with new men's basketball coach Tony Barbee in today's newspaper. You can read the shorter version by clicking here.(How long until you move to the new arena?)

"I don't know. They tell you something different each day. When we got here it was five weeks. Yesterday they told me end of May, middle of June. So when it happens it happens."

(What has the first month and a half on the job been like?)

"Long days. (Laughs) It's been good. It's been fun. It's been hectic. It's been crazy. It's been a whirlwind. It's been all those type of things. But I think we've been very productive in laying the foundation of where I'm trying to take this program to. And that's one that's trying to connect with a lot of different sectors. The alumni, the students, the campus, the community, and so all the different types of things we've been trying to do from the speaking to the recruiting to the just going out and having lunch on campus with the students, all that has played a part in just trying to reconnect this men's basketball program with the Auburn family. Because there's a passion there for this program that is just waiting to be stoked. And that's my job to recreate that love affair with this program and with this Auburn family."

(Is this any different from when you took the UTEP job?)

Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs was kind enough to sit down with the Ledger-Enquirer this week for an interview that touched on many subjects. The majority of it can be found here on our Web site, but as always, not everything made the cut.

That's where the vast expanse of the Internet comes into play. Here's what didn't make it into the regular edition of the paper. Call it the scraps. Call it the stuff that was on the cutting room floor. Or, as we like to do, call them B-sides. And if you doubt that the "leftover" material can be good, remember, at least according to Wikipedia, that Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," the Doobie Brothers' "Black Water" and Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" were all B-sides. And those are some solid songs.

So, without further adieu, the remainder of the Jacobs interview:

Auburn ranked sixth in football revenue for the 2007-08 school year, according to a recent report in Street & Smith's SportsJournal. How pleased are you with the money that's coming into the program?

"We're certainly very pleased with the Auburn people giving back to Auburn, which is a large part of that. That was actually for last year, the report was from last year. Certainly with the economic times that there are, it's far more difficult for everybody, including our fans in the Auburn family, but I certainly am proud of the job our folks are doing in Tigers Unlimited. But with the demands of winning, the expectations that each of us at Auburn have for all of our teams, and building a $90 million basketball arena, we budget wisely and conservatively and try to do things as good stewards of the athletic department. We've been able to put a little bit of money away for a time like this year, where it's level funding for all of our sports and all of our support areas, but we certainly do appreciate it. But there are demands that we've already obligated those funds to, it's going to be about a $5 million annual debt service just on the new basketball arena. So I'm certainly proud of that fact, but in order for us to continue to provide for our team so they can win academically and athletically, we have to continue to find ways to generate more and more revenue. And certainly can't do it without the folks that provide financial support to us through Tigers Unlimited. So we haven't actually seen all that money come in, because they include promise-to-gives for future times. But certainly are excited that we're up there at the top in that area and don't know exactly how the economy this year, what kind of spot it's going to put people in so they can fulfill those pledges that a lot of that report was based on."

Have you spoken with Tommy Tuberville since December?

"No, I haven't."

Is that unfortunate considering the relationship you two had when he was the head coach?

"When he came to me and said that he he didn't want to coach anymore, after getting through those couple of weeks there, I think the best thing was just to give him his space. But no, I haven't spoken to him. But he's a guy that loved Auburn and I wish nothing but the best for him and Suzanne and Tucker and Troy and Miss Olive."

When he resigned, it was announced that he would take on an ambassador role for Auburn University. Has he done so?

"I don't think so. The president offered that for him. He'd be assistant for the president. I think he had lost 15 pounds (after his departure) and he was exhausted. I think that maybe hopefully he's taken some time to make sure he's in good shape mentally, physically and spiritually as well. But I don't know if he's doing anything with Auburn at this time."

Former offensive coordinator Tony Franklin, now at Middle Tennessee, had some unflattering things to say about Auburn recently, saying that there was a great distrust between the coaches and administration and that the tension at the athletic complex was palpable. What do you think when you hear something like that?

"I wish nothing but the best for Tony. I wish nothing but the best. We certainly appreciate his time here and just hope he has nothing but successes the rest of his life. It sounds like, based on what I saw, that's he's at peace where he is and we're going to continue to do things the Auburn way. But he's a brilliant offensive mind and I wish him nothing but the best."

How much has changed in football since your playing days in the early '80s?

"The recruiting game has completely changed. And football has changed, but particularly in our Olympic sports, I know that's not what you're asking about, but when you have 10th graders making a commitment. But the reason that is is because they're so much more informed now because of the Internet, they can learn more about an institution, the good, the bad, the whole deal, so actually in some cases have more access to more information and can make a better informed decision on some of the foundational things, and so the recruiting game is completely changed. Somebody made the comment, there are two seasons, there's the fall and there's recruiting season. And people's attention to those things. It's made it more challenging, particularly for the student-athlete. There's always somebody asking them now what they're going to do and every time they respond, it ends up somewhere, being broadcast some way. So I think that's a different dynamic, but now you can only sign 25 where at one time you can sign a lot more than that. So it's highly competitive for those top 25.

What about the game itself?

"The game hasn't changed that much. I think it goes through phases, but basically in this league, you've got to be able to play defense and run the ball and mix it up on offense. That really hasn't changed very much. And that's what I like about this offense. I think they were maybe sixth or seventh in the nation in rushing. But it's a fun offense that the guys like to play in, because you never know where we're going to hit you, and that's a fun deal compared to when I played the wishbone, and we were either right, left or up the middle. There wasn't a lot of guessing."

You were teammates with Bo Jackson and Auburn's strength coach when Tracy Rocker was at the school. Were those players unique talents in a football sense?

"In 2004, with Carlos Rogers and Carnell (Williams) and Ronnie (Brown), those were those kind of guys. (Marcus) McNeill. Those were those kind of guys. And they're not only great players but great people. And there's a direct correlation between your aptitude in the classroom and your aptitude on the playing field, and you can't not be competitive in the classroom and be competitive on the football field. It'd be short-lived, today in particular, as academically challenging as it is as much as you have to learn on the football side. So those guys, Bo Jackson and Tracy Rocker and those I mentioned, and countless numbers in between, they're good, solid people, they know how to work, they have a good work ethic, and that's where this program has to get back to in a couple years is get back to those quality people and those quality athletes. But we've got a lot of great, quality athletes here; we just don't have (enough) of them. Our troops are depleted, and it's going to take a couple years, but Gene (Chizik) and his staff, they're putting a foundation back in this program, because they both see, and these other eight assistant coaches, they know what great looks like, and that's what they're building here. And it's going to take some time. And so it's a tough environment with our current guys, but I'll tell you this: you won't be more proud of how they work and how they behave themselves and compete in the classroom and on the field, but we've just got to get some more guys to help those that are currently here."

What's the status of the new $92.5 million basketball arena?

"It's on budget and right on schedule. We plan to be in there August of 2010 and open up the season there for women's and men's' basketball in the fall of 2010. It's going to be an unbelievable place for folks from Columbus, Montgomery, the Auburn area to go and watch basketball. It's going to be a unique facility, it's going to be a family atmosphere, it's going to be real tight. It's going to be one where you can sit on the concourse and order popcorn and you'll be able to continue to watch the game. There won't be any walls between the concourse and the court. It's going to be a really state-of-the-art facility, one of the best in the nation."

Is there a plan for what to do with Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum?

"Athletics operates one-third of that facility, and our plan has been now we're in our third year of our five-year plan, is to be completely out of that facility, because how we got to it was about a $30 or $40 million cost in infrastructure that needs to be done to that facility — heating and air and electrical and plumbing. That's how we got to the new basketball arena. And so I would suspect that the arena once we're out of there, and we'll be out of there in two years, once athletics is out there, there is still health and human performance, Kinesiology is still housed there along with some other support, academic areas. And as soon as those decisions are made about where they're going to go, I would suspect that Beard-Eaves is coming down. Because you still have that cost down there to continue to operate. You've got to spend some money, and it probably wouldn't warrant it to keep it."

With Auburn being so football-centric, do the other sports get overlooked?

"The ones that matter the most, which are those student-athletes, know that they're not overlooked. That's the No. 1 concern of us and all of Auburn people. And what a great group of student-athletes. We just took about 30 of them out to Richard Quick's memorial service. And if people had the opportunity to get to know, and some people do but many don't, had the opportunity to get to know our student-athletes, they'd be so impressed with them, not only as world-class athletes but just as people. Yeah, you would like more interest to be shown in all of our Olympic sports, but it certainly doesn't take away from our commitment to them or our experience that the student-athletes are having. They'll be national champions for the rest of their lives, and they'll be better citizens for having competed here, whether they won a championship or not. You wish that there was more exposure for those so that people can really see the quality of individuals and the championships, but the world we live in now, the shock effect seems to be what grabs the headlines, and sometimes whether they're accurate or inaccurate, those are the things people seem to gravitate toward."

How do you get away from it all?

"I hang out with my girls. I have three daughters, 17, 14 and 11. I don't do much of anything. I played golf one year ago. That was the last time I played golf. One time. And I'm going to play here in the next few days with some buddies of mine. It'll be a scramble. I hope. But I hang out with my girls. And recently, 4½ months ago, we stared fostering two little girls, they're 4 and 2. And that's all full-time. So I've got a 2-year-old, a 4-year-old, an 11-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old. All girls in my house. So that's what I'm doing and it's wonderful that I can take my work home or bring my home to work, because it gives me the best of both worlds. It gives me the opportunity to continue to develop my daughters, and they get the opportunity to see what great looks like when they see these exceptional student-athletes that we have here at Auburn. So they're role models for them."

You sound outnumbered in your home?

"I was outnumbered when I got married. [Laughs] But it's a blessing. And the foster thing was something that my wife and I had wanted to do for a while, and we went through the licensing last September and got a license in January and got two little girls the first week of February. And it's a ministry for us. We're just trying to stop a vicious cycle, and our goal is for these little girls to go back to their home and hopefully sooner rather than later they'll be able to do that. And then we'll try to help somebody else out. There's a verse that says, to whom much is given, much is expected. And we've been very blessed. We have three healthy daughters and an incredible wife and mom, we just felt like we needed to do a little bit more. Hadn't always felt that way. And it was a process, and now we feel like with our youngest at 11, now is the time to maybe help somebody else that is struggling in a way we can't identify with, so that's what we're doing."

Listened to Auburn coaches Tommy Tuberville, Terry Price and Steve Ensminger today. The two assistants were particularly timely since they're the position coaches at each of Gabe McKenzie's positions -- tight end/inside receiver (Ensminger) and defensive end (Price). They assured us that Gabe will still play some offense after switching to defensive end today. That seems to be a difficult proposition, but more power to him if he can pull it off.

First, I'll post some notes from Tuberville's comments and then drop some quotes from that trio -- some of which I used in my stories for Wednesday, some of which I didn't -- below the notes.

Notes:
* Still no word on Reggie Hunt as of this morning.
* Brad Lester (ankle) and Tristan Davis (foot) still did not practice. Tuberville said they would wait until they're 100 percent. He said Davis is about 75.
* Jake Ricks (knee bruise) is apparently OK. Truthfully, I didn't know until Tuberville said he was relieved Jake wasn't seriously injured that he was injured at all. Said he did some jogging on the side today and should be back practicing shortly.
* Jomarcus Savage (shoulder) should be back soon as well. Tuberville predicted he and Ricks will probably do conditioning stuff all week and then come back next week to start game prep. Tubs said the plan is to play Savage if he can stay healthy.
* Bart Eddins (shoulder) may or may not play in the first game, he said. He said Eddins' shoulder is still sore and regaining its strength and he won't go until he's 100 percent.
* He said they're still undecided on redshirting a handful of freshmen. The names he mentioned were Harry Adams, Spencer Pybus, Darvin Adams and Barrett Trotter, adding, "you can pretty much name most of them yourselves." He said Gabe switching to defense might mean freshman Vance Smith has a better chance to play this year.
* Darrell Roseman is also playing some offensive line, although he's not especially healthy yet.

So here are some of the highlights of what they had to say...

Tubs on what they accomplished this morning:
"We divided up some. Not a whole lot. Everybody didn’t go to scout teams today. We still wanted to look at a few guys that might not go to scout team, but it was a good start to game preparation. We spent probably half of practice working on the Warhawks and the other we’re still working on the fundamentals. A lot of guys still need fundamentals and we’re not gonna stop that – we don’t stop that all year. And we always spend on Tuesday about 20, 25 minutes a day working against each other, ones versus ones, ones versus twos, and then we got into game preparation of special teams, working at what we think they might do on special teams and putting a few new things in that we haven’t done in the first few weeks."

Tuberville on Gabe McKenzie's decision to play defense:
"He kinda saw that the line was pretty long there with Tommy doing so well. But he catches the ball and has done better. He will also play tight end, but with Raven Gray slowed a little bit with his injury, who will eventually be a good football player for us, Gabe thought that he might be able to get some snaps on the defensive side. Today was his first time in full pads. He did very good, he’s just got a lot to learn. But I think as the year goes on, he could really give us a lot of help there. He’s very athletic and he was a very good defensive player in high school. But this situation that we’ve got right now, he sees that if he wants to be on the field more, he might have to get some reps at defensive end. The defensive end position we’re playing him at is the tight end side where you’ve got to be physical, and that’s right up his alley."

Tuberville on McKenzie's immediate prospects at DE:
"I’m not saying he’s gonna play 30, 40 snaps in the first game, but I would see him possibly getting in the game quite a bit. But this week would be the telling tale. He’ll have to show us something this week because of all the fundamentals that we’ll do and not do next week. We’re gonna be just kind of in a game mode next week."

Tuberville on how this helps Gabe, more on his decision:
"You don’t tell anybody where to play. That’s kind of our deal. We kinda let them see it. Gabe last year, he played, I’m gonna guess on average maybe 20 plays a game. He wants to be out there more. He’s very enthusiastic about football. He loves football. So I think this is a great move for him. I think it gives him a chance to have an opportunity at both after next year. He’s a junior and one more year will give him a chance to get a look at the next level at both of them."

Ensminger on moving McKenzie to defense:
"We kinda discussed it and felt like he could give some depth on defense over there, so he’s gonna spend some time over there and if he can help the team, then it’ll be good. But he’ll still get some offensive reps. He’s gonna get some offensive reps. We need him on the other side of the football. He understands it. So right now he probably needs to spend this whole week over there learning their system and all that. But he’ll still get his plays in on offense."

Ensminger on how defensive coaches seem to have had their eyes on McKenzie for a while:
"They see him out there running and everything else with a big body and say, ‘Hey, he can play defensive end.’ I guess during the course of the years, we’ve had enough depth at defensive end that we felt pretty comfortable. Right now, we’ve had some people banged up, I guess, and the depth’s a little short there, so he kinda wanted to do it. And if it’ll help the team, I’m for it."

Ensminger on how Terrell Zachary has looked in camp:
"Really good. For a player that has had some ups and downs here at Auburn with his academics or whatever, trying to get on the field, (he’s a) very responsible young man. He’s done everything I’ve asked him to do, has worked his tail off. Like I said, he’s probably – at my position, I know – the most improved player since last January to now that I have."

Price on what he knew about McKenzie before Tuesday:
"Tight ends and defensive ends do a lot of competition against each other every single day in practice so obviously you know about him, know about his ability. I guess that’s something he wanted to do and obviously I welcome that with open arms. We’re gonna work with him the best we can and see if we can get him ready to play defensive end in the SEC."

Price on how quickly McKenzie will contribute:
"It just depends on how fast he develops. It’s hard to tell after one day, but obviously he has athletic ability, he has toughness, he runs well and now it’s a matter of learning the defense and learning the techniques it takes to play out there."

Price on the versatility it takes for McKenzie to do both:
"There’s a lot of guys on both sides of the ball that can switch sides at any time because of their ability. Obviously we worked with the guys we had and it’s kind of a situation where he kinda in his mind made his mind up that he wanted to come over there and play defense. Obviously when he did decide to do that, we took him with open arms and we’ll put him to work every single day and see what he can do."

Price on whether it's easier to play strongside DE (where McKenzie is playing) or weakside:
"From a learning point of view, it’s a little bit easier because, again, you don’t have to worry about dropping into coverage and doing some of the things you have to do in a 3-4.
(Strongside is) a little less challenging as far as that part’s concerned, so he won’t have to learn the coverages and won’t have to learn how to drop on receivers and running backs and tight ends and all those things. But he’ll still have to learn where to go and where to line up and how to get everything going."

Price on the good news that Jomarcus Savage would be back shortly:
"Very, very, very encouraging. A young player like that needs to be out there every single day. Anytime you hurt a shoulder, you never know how bad it is – whether it’s a few days out, a year out, surgery, whatever it is, you just never know. So it’s very, very good to hear that he won’t have to have any kind of major surgery right now. I think he’s gonna be fine. He’s gonna work hard, rehab and get out there as soon as he can."

Price on the depth chart at strongside DE:
"That situation is really in flux right now. We’ve got Mike Goggans that I think is established right now as the starter at that position. Right now we’re still trying to figure out who’s behind at that position right now. He was doing well before he got hurt, so we’ll have to get him healthy and get all our guys on the field and kinda evaluate them and see where they sit."

Price on Raven Gray:
"He’s pushing through everything right now and working as hard as he can and trying to do the best he can on the football field to help himself on the depth chart. That’s kinda where it is."

Here's the first part of what Tommy Tuberville had to say, followed by some highlights from the other questions and answers after his opening statement.

We didn’t perform real good in most of our scrimmage yesterday. We kinda ran out of gas. We lost our concentration, we made a lot of mental mistakes. I figured that before we watched the film, but I wanted to wait and see. Effort look like we tried to be good. It looked like we were running with leg weights on, but there were some good things. We made some plays.

I thought defensively we stepped up about the middle of practice. We played well on defense and then we just lost our concentration and guys kinda, we went through wrong gaps, we didn’t use our hands, we didn’t get off blocks and we didn’t tackle well. We’ve gotta get a lot better on defense. Actually the bright spot, I thought, was our defensive backs. I thought they covered well, broke on the ball. Mike Slade, probably the best scrimmage he’s had, really played well. Really proud of him. D’Antoine Hood stepped up and looked like he’d been out there for a while and even Neiko Thorpe, both those guys are really making some progress. Harry Adams, hit and miss, a little bit. He will play, and made an interception, but technique-wise he’s got a ways to go. But I like his effort. Our front and our linebackers, we didn’t play near as well as we did the week before.

Offensively, I thought we made some plays. Guys catching the ball and getting 10 to 15 yards down the field. We’re learning to run north and south after the catch. Our offensive line came off the ball well for about the first 25, 30 plays and after that we didn’t do very well. We lost our concentration, we missed blocks and defense threw a couple more different blitzes at them that I thought they adjusted well, but it took a while. We’re gonna have to do a little bit better, offensive line, to make adjustments and be able to figure things out a bit quicker. Both quarterbacks did well. We threw the long ball pretty good, a little bit better than we have. Threw some good corner routes. I thought we caught the ball better other than a couple guys. We had about five drops early on crucial down-and-distance situations that could have been a lot better. We’ve got to catch the ball a lot more consistently.

Kicking game was a little sporadic in terms of punting. Both punters I thought did a good job after they got the jitters. It looks like sometimes we go in that stadium and we look real good out here in all areas and then we go in the stadium and change our tempo for some reason. We tighten up, so we’ve gotta get out of that scenario.

(Jomarcus) Savage will have an MRI tomorrow. His shoulder is a little sore, but they’ll check it and a couple more guys that they’ll look at. But really nothing that we’re concerned about other than Savage. But today we did a lot of team stuff full-speed except for tackling. I thought we got better. We came back in the right frame of mind. Guys did a good job of working on their mistakes that they made. That’s really the last time that we’ll go against each other in practice that much for a while. Tuesday we’ll start in the morning about 9:30 and start scout teaming and start working a little bit more on situation stuff and won’t work against each other as much.

Other Tuberville highlights:
* He said they should make decisions on who will or won’t play tomorrow.
* Chaz Ramsey attended practice today, but isn’t ready to practice yet. They aren’t expecting him back especially soon. Same with Andre Wadley today.
* He said Brad Lester and Tristan Davis will be back at practice Tuesday.
* Mario Fannin practiced full-speed today.
* Tuberville on Reggie Hunt’s situation with the Clearinghouse: “Surely they’ll let us know in the next couple days.”
* Brent Slusher has medical “issues.” Plural. Tuberville is hoping he’ll be back and cleared to practice soon.
* Ryan Williams is eligible to play, on one condition. “If he gets out of my doghouse, he will be. He’s in the doghouse. He’s doing good out there, though. We’d love for him to step up and do well for us because that’s an area where we’re not abundant in depth and experience. Course he doesn’t have much either, but he’s got to get out of my doghouse."
* There are “a couple more” in the doghouse, as well, although he wouldn’t specify who. “They’re scratching at the door,” he said.

All right, after finishing my story and notebook, I'll drop some of the stuff I gathered from today's post-scrimmage. This week was much, much better than after last week's scrimmage, so thanks to them for taking care of us. Of course, you'd love to be able to watch the thing in a perfect world, but I get why they keep it closed. Keep that in mind, though, when you're reading everybody's stories from the scrimmage. You're only able to be so accurate when you're writing about something you haven't seen. Details vary from person to person when they're recounting things.

Anyway, Tuberville said they ran about 90 plays, plus 30 more in the kicking game. He said the only injury was to freshman DE Jomarcus Savage, but he didn't think it was serious. Bart Eddins (shoulder) should be back within the next week, he said.
* Also, Brad Lester, Tristan Davis, Mario Fannin and Sen'Derrick Marks didn't scrimmage.
* He probably had the line of the day, when he said they should have the depth chart ready in about 10 days: "We’ll look at (film) and we’ll talk about it. We’ve got to give y’all something the next couple weeks, since we’re not fighting anymore."
* Still no word on Reggie Hunt. He said they expect word from the Clearinghouse by maybe Monday, which he said is like the deadline, since classes start on Monday.
* Senior safety Jonathan Vickers has been awarded a scholarship.
* Tuberville likes what safety Mike Slade did today and predicts he'll play a lot this year.
* Rod Smith said he scored on a TD pass of about 50 yards from Kodi Burns.
* He said the coaches were going to immediately watch and grade the film and then
show it to the players afterward. He thinks they're getting ready to decide which freshmen are bound for redshirt years.
* Speaking of freshmen, lots of talk about Philip Pierre-Louis today. Tuberville talked about him at least once or twice. I know I've been pumping him up on here, too, because he's been really fun to watch so far. My guess is that he's going to be a fan favorite because of what he does after the catch. I've already posted Tubs' comments from after the scrimmage on PPL. Here's the quote I used from Jerraud Powers about him today:
"I didn’t get a shot at him. During practice and stuff, we usually sort of talk stuff to each other. I get him a few times in practice, but he’s so quick and fast, it’s hard to get a hold of him. But I didn’t get a chance to go against him today, but I saw him make a lot of plays today, though."
* Tomorrow's the last of 16 straight days of preseason practice. They'll break on Monday for the first day of classes and then begin their regular fall routine. Only two weeks to go...

Here are some more quotes from the players I talked to post-scrimmage:

Jerraud Powers on the scrimmage:
"I would say the first half, I’d say we probably got the upper hand in the first half, but as the scrimmage went along, receivers started making plays and they started running the ball a little bit. I thought Tate had a good scrimmage. He was running the ball well. So later in the second half, the offense probably got the upper hand."

Powers on whether the pace of the offense affected the defense:
"Personally I’ve sorta adapted to it. It doesn’t bother me personally. But I think with the d-line though – and I think o-line too – I think it takes a toll on them as it goes on. That’ll happen, just because those guys are 290, 300 pounds. As far as the linebackers, secondary, I think we’re starting to adapt to it a little bit."

Merrill Johnson, on the offense and defense's performances:
"The offense, they’re getting great chemistry together. They were moving the ball downfield pretty good today. That’s a good thing, as long as our defense continues to progress and continues to get better. We need to work on tackling and I think everything’s gonna work itself out."

Johnson, on whether tackling was again the biggest issue in the scrimmage:
"It is. But we work on tackling every day and we’re gonna continue to get better at it, but right now we’re not where we want to be. So we’ve just got to stay hungry until we get there."

Smith, on the quarterback race:
"As far as one pulling away from another, I can’t tell you that. As far as the competition, it’s still a great competition going on and I’m just looking forward – I don’t even know who’s gonna be the starter – so I’m just looking forward to seeing who’s gonna be the starter. Both of those guys continue to make plays for the team."

Mike McNeil, on how the defense is a little rusty on its tackling because it hasn't done much in practice:
"That’s definitely a reason. You practice how you’re gonna play. We’re not being as physical in practice or they’re blowing an early whistle. That benefits the offense, but it also hurts the defense."

McNeil, on Ben Tate's performance in the scrimmage:
"Ben Tate is a great back. To me he has it all. He has speed, quickness and the size and the strength – and he has good vision. He’s a smart back. He’s not just gonna run blindly, he’s gonna find blocks. I think overall, Ben Tate had a good day."

McNeil, on the running game:
"I think the running game’s gonna excel because of the passing game. They’re gonna open up, spread the field. We’ve got great backs who can run the ball and wide receivers who can catch the ball, so we’re gonna use all that to our advantage."

McNeil, on what the defense needs to work on:
"Right now I believe it’s just conditioning and tackling."

For a couple reasons, most of which are related to my utter stupidity, I missed Tommy Tuberville's comments directly after the scrimmage. I got there just in time for player interviews. However, the good people in Auburn's sports communications office let me listen to their tape of Tuberville's comments and I just got finished transcribing. Here's almost all of what he had to say:

Opening comments:
(We were) awful sluggish coming out of two-a-days, but we can expect that. It looked like we were running in mud at times, but we got something done. Mainly the scrimmage was for some of the younger guys that needed to play, needed to get tired, needed to get hit, find out what it’s gonna be like. Most of the other guys did play at some point. We did have to hold a couple guys out. But started fast on offense and I thought the defense came around the last three quarters of practice. We had some good runs, some good blocking up front. We were a little bit more physical today. We needed that.

We did work on kickoff, kickoff return, live. We worked on punting live and we did quite a few field goals. I think Wesley missed maybe just one. He’s been real consistent. Our punters, both of them had I think four live punts and each of them had one that wasn’t real good. The other three were very competitive. We’ll see what they averaged after today.

Jomarcus Savage banged his shoulder up a little bit. He had to come out. He’s really the only injury, but he should be back next week. The doctor said it’s nothing serious. But a lot of good contact, but also a few more mistakes than we made last week. Probably seven or eight penalties. This was an SEC group that worked and I told them to be very picky, very tough in terms of alignments and guys doing the right things, and they called it and it was good.

We ran two-minute drills at the end that were live and one group did good on offense. The other one didn’t do very well and we ended up with a good field goal at the end out of Wesley and Hull, making their field goal from two-minute drill on the last group to finish up solid.

We’re gonna come back this afternoon and look at the film. We’ll grade it first and the players will come back and look at the film. We’ve got a lot of mistakes. Now we’ve got to start finding out who’s gonna play. Start from our freshmen up and who we want to start putting on special teams. Tomorrow we’ll come back. I haven’t decided on what kind of practice we’ll have. After we look at the film, we’ll determine that. Monday will be a day off, but we’ve got to get their legs back. They’re pretty much gone in terms of any quickness or speed.

One guy that did show some elusiveness and made some big plays is Philip-Pierre Louis. That’s one guy that I’ll tell you did well in the scrimmage. He’s not a big target, but the quarterbacks have a lot of confidence in him and a lot of confidence that he can make plays afterwards. There were other guys that made plays, but standing out there and watching a guy that just made consistent plays was him. Defensively, it wasn’t anybody that really stood out, but we probably threw the ball a little more today than we ran it, so that was a challenge to our secondary and linebackers, trying to find out where they’re at. Last week we ran it probably more than we threw it, so a little bit different today. Questions.

On Philip Pierre-Louis (who he's taken to calling Frenchy):
He just caught short passes, made 10-, 15-yard runs after that. No long plays. It’s just consistently when the ball’s thrown his way, he caught it. I counted the first half, we probably had four drops. I’m talking about total. And he wasn’t in any of those. We concentrated a little bit better catching the ball in the second half. I thought our quarterbacks did a pretty decent job throwing the ball. Not anything spectacular. The biggest thing is making the right decisions in these scrimmages when you’ve got two guys vying for the starting position, and I thought both of them did about the same. We’ll have to look assignment-wise and how they ran the team. Both of them scored points, but we mixed them up, in and out, trying to find the right combination.

On depth chart:
About third game. We’ll have one probably Tuesday or Wednesday game week. We’re gonna look at a lot of different guys and we’ll have to make some decisions. There’s not many hardships anymore. If you play ‘em, they’re done. And so we want to make sure that any of the younger guys that we play, it’s gonna be worth it. There are some battles at a lot of positions, so we’ll have to grade this film first and see if anybody made any movement, but we’ll have a depth chart, not this week but the next week.

On the scrimmage:
There was probably a few more bigger plays last week. There was more of a grind today, working it down the field. The offense did have some consistency. That’s what I like. They were more consistent. Brad didn’t play. Tristan didn’t play. Ben did play, got I’d say off the top of my head, 10-12 carries, which he needed to get this week. He didn’t do much earlier in the week because of his concussion, but he looked pretty good today running the ball. But we all looked slow. It looks like we all had ankle weights on.

On tackling in scrimmage:
Tackled a little bit better. But when you’re trying to tackle Frenchy, it’s pretty tough. He’s gonna be exciting to watch. He’ll make you look bad in one-on-one, but it’s good. It’s good to see somebody like that in the open field. I’m talking about not just the young guys, everybody was trying to take a dead beat on him. He’s gonna make a lot of people do tackling drills the next week if he can stay healthy.

On releasing the depth chart:
We’ll look at this and we’ll talk about it. We’ve got to give y’all something to talk about the next couple weeks, since we’re not fighting anymore.

On the No. 3 quarterback race:
Both of ‘em played a lot. I thought Neil has really improved. The thing that he’s gotta do is make a little bit quicker decision. Every once in a while, of all of them, last spring and everything, he’d throw it to the wrong-colored jersey and that’s what we’re trying to get him out of. He’s done a better job of that. I think he’s much improved in that area, making better decisions. But again, this offense, he’s pretty familiar with. But Barrett got a lot of velocity on the ball. He’s one where we’ll have to make a decision what we want to do with him.

On defensive highlights:
Harry Adams made a nice interception. We blew the whistle. He probably coulda run it back, but when I saw him get to the sideline, we didn’t want to embarrass the offensive linemen trying to chase him. But he made a good play. There wasn’t many fumbles. We didn’t have many fumbles at all, but there were some pretty good tipped balls. I thought our d-line got a pretty good pass rush today from the corners. We looked a little quicker out there. We just looked sluggish in some areas, though, but we knew that was gonna happen.

On Eddins’ shoulder:
I talked to him today. It’s just a bruise. He said he’d be back Tuesday. Doctors said probably more Thursday or maybe hold him out all week and just get him ready for Sunday. Next week we’ll go all the way through Friday and take Saturday off and start back on Sunday on game week. But good news on that. Just a bruise.

On Reggie Hunt:
We called all day yesterday. When they don’t return your calls, you know … But there’s probably not anybody in here that doesn’t remember one like that every year. You just can’t get any word out of them, and we were supposed to hear Monday, so I’m sure Monday will be pretty much the deadline. We’ve got to do it Monday. We start school Monday and we’ve got him ready to go, if they’d just give us a call. Course it could go the other way, too, so we’re expecting either way.

On safeties behind the starters:
I’ll tell you, Mike Slade made a couple good plays, broke on the ball well. I noticed that. Again, we tried to throw the ball on the safeties today a little bit more, tried to throw the ball in the middle of the field. I think Mike has really improved. He’s gonna see a lot of playing time. Of course last week and this week, we went after the corners, all of them, first and second team. But that’s what this offense does. It’s gonna really put pressure on them, and this week was no different. Had a couple pass interference calls this week that we didn’t have last week.

Here's what Auburn offensive coordinator Tony Franklin had to say to reporters after Tuesday's practice:

On Saturday’s scrimmage:
Saturday I thought we got a lot accomplished, a lot of guys made plays. It seems like six weeks ago that Saturday happened, so my memory fails me on exactly what happened. There’s been a lot of film since there. We had good tempo as the scrimmage progressed. Early on, we didn’t have real good tempo and that’s because we’re a little slower out here right now than what we normally will be. But trying to get through two-a-days and trying to make sure that the defense is able to accomplish what they need to accomplish … so Saturday took a while for us to get our tempo the way that we want it. But overall we played hard and we had some good playmakers that made plays, so I was pleased with what happened.

On the quarterback race:
I’ll tell ya what’s fun. This has been the most fun for me about watching the quarterbacks. It’s like a great heavyweight championship fight and one guy lands what you think is a knockout blow and the other guy falls against the ropes and 5 seconds later he comes back and he lands a blow that you think’s gonna knock the other one out. And it happens every day to where one guy will make a throw that just blows your mind and then the other one will walk in and he’ll trump it. And that’s phenomenal because it shows that they’re both competitors, that neither one of them wither from the competition, they step up to it. And I think, again, like I’ve said many times, the longer this thing progresses, the more that it becomes such a wonderful problem because they’ve both risen to the occasion, they’ve both gotten better and I’m very tickled with how they’ve both played.

On if he still thinks it will be the week before Louisiana-Monroe that they’ll name a starter:
I don’t have a clue. I don’t have a clue.

If they decide to split it up, will they even announce a starter:
I don’t know, it’s something coach Tuberville and I will sit down and talk about and see what we feel like is best for the team. Like I told you I guess the last time that we talked is that it’s something that right now I’d have a very difficult time doing that because they’re both really good. They’re both making plays, they’re both getting better at their weaknesses. Kodi’s gotten a lot better throwing, Chris has gotten a lot better running, so it’s really like I said. It’s one of those things that the harder it gets, the tougher the competiton gets, then the better that they both get. So it’s been really a blessing for both of them. They’ve both become better.

On what he’s seen from the receivers:
I see talent that’s good enough to win in this league and I see it our job to make ‘em better. That’s what we’re hired to do and I’m very pleased with it. They’ve stepped up, they’ve gotten better. They’re a lot better now than they were at the end of the spring. Greg and Steve have both done an incredible job with coaching those guys and getting them better. The details they’ve paid attention to and they’re good enough to win in this league. It’s our job just to make sure we do a good job coaching them.

On receivers that have stood out:
You know it’s really several that stand out. The biggest probably most pleasant thing that’s happened so far has been Chris Slaughter. He’s a guy that you can tell his talent, but the work ethic and the day in and day out grind of doing the right things and making plays and all that, just I never saw it. And from the day that we started, the first practice that we had, he was like a different person. I keep waiting for it to fall off and it hasn’t, so that’s been probably the most pleasant surprise. Gabe McKenzie’s been another pleasant surprise. Gabe has caught, he’s had very few drops, if any, in competition. That’s very pleasant. His routes are still not as crisp as they need to be, but he has stepped up and shown more promise.

On how many freshmen might play:
Well, the running back probably, Eric, will probably play. Philip will probably play. Derek is a question mark. Not really 100 percent sure yet whether he will or not. Darvin will probably play. So those guys are definitely gonna play.

On the importance of having Jason Bosley back in practice:
It means we’ve got a snap, you know? We had a day where he and Pugh both were out and it was a challenge, as you saw Tyronne getting his first time ever at center. But it’s a lot for leadership and it helps getting Pugh back getting reps at tackle too. But it’s big. Your center on this team plays a huge role, so it’s good to have him back.

(I can’t hear this question well, but I think the reporter asked if Barrett Trotter or Neil Caudle has separated himself as the No. 3 quarterback):
Not really. I mean they’re both good enough. It’s just a matter of probably just making a decision one day as to which one that we’re gonna use.

Auburn linebackers coach James Willis talked to a group of reporters after Monday evening's practice for about five minutes. Here's what he had to say:

Thoughts on the scrimmage?
It’s a good starting point. Our guys came out and they competed. The biggest thing we were looking for in that first scrimmage is how guys respond under pressure. Alignments, understanding formations, understanding coverages and just overall effort getting to the ball and I think our guys came out and did a pretty good job of that. It’s just a starting point. We’ve got a long way to go.

And today?
Here’s what I feel about a feel of the defense. I feel like our guys are right now in the whole swing of training camp, getting hot, getting tired and sore and all that stuff, but they come out every morning and they compete. They understand what’s ahead of ‘em, they come out and they attack the task at hand. So that’s what we’re really proud of.

Anybody really improve since spring practice?
I think a lot of guys have. I’m very proud of Adam Herring. He’s really come out and paid great attention to detail. His assignments, his technique, his fundamentals, everything is right on track with where he should be right now. I really take hats off to him. Also Josh Bynes is coming with a tremendous job also.

Bynes and Herring still at (middle linebacker)?
Yes sir.

On the importance of Bynes following a strong spring with a strong fall:
The key word is consistency. That’s one thing we’ve challenged Josh with from day one is being consistent. He’ll come out one day and be all over the place and the next day you might not even hear his name being called. That’s what we kinda gave him a challenge as, as far as coming out to this training camp and seeing if he can improve in that area, and I think he has.

On the competition between Evans and Johnson for the starting job:
It’s a great problem to have. Right now, again, if you gave me a starting roster, they’d both be on the first team. That’s a great problem to have.

On the play of Stevens and Blackmon:
They haven’t missed a day. They’ve both come out with some nagging injuries here or there, but they both come out, they line up and they perform every snap, so I’m very proud about that.

On how many guys he needs to be game-ready:
You’d rather have six, but right now we have seven. That’s a good thing. I mean, Pybus has really stepped up and he’s one that I’m gonna keep my eye on. If he’ll keep pushing and keep pushing, he may have a chance to help us this season.

On who would be the seven:
Of course, Craig Stevens and Courtney Harden. Tray and Merrill. You’ve also got … Chris and Evans. And now Adam Herring and Pybus both are giving a push for that seventh spot. … and Bynes also. So we’ve got some depth now and that’s a great thing for us right now because for the last few years we haven’t had that at linebacker, so right now we’re pretty strong in the depth category.

On what he saw in Pybus, who wasn’t especially highly recruited:
That’s the thing. He came to camp for two strong years and he came and competed. Every year I saw him get better and better. The kid can run fast, he can jump high and he can cover. Things like that kinda show up, plus he loves Auburn. He’s one that every year he came back, he was loyal, he came to camp every time we had a camp. And that’s one thing that means a lot to us.

Is he making plays?
He’s making plays. If you go back and watch the scrimmage, his name was called several times – a lot of times in one series. So that’s outstanding.

When did you start seeing the light come on as far as doing that?
I think the second day of pads. The first day of course everybody looks good in shorts. The first day the pads came on, I think he kinda hit a wall. Coach Tub (?) put some more defenses in and we gave him a challenge as far as coming out and seeing if you can push past that wall, and he did. He came out when the bullets were live just making plays, so that was very good to see.

Is he still gonna redshirt?
Hard to say. Hard to say. I mean he’s doing some good things out there. We don’t recruit guys to redshirt. He came in and he has a chance to play if he can come out and keep getting better.

On Craig Stevens:
Here’s what we gave him. Craig is the kind of guy for us at linebacker that he does all the right things. He’s always in the right spot, always doing the right thing in his assignments. Our challenge to Craig was doing something special. Making that special play, that tremendous play. And I think he’s done some of those things in camp now, so he’s definitely improved in that area.

On the changes he’s seen in Tray Blackmon:
Every year, he gets better and better. You see maturity. He matures right in front of your face. This year he came out and again, Tray’s been the kind of guy where maybe every day he doesn’t show up. Well he’s been showing up every day in practice, fighting through some soreness. He’s one of those tight-muscle guys and he gets sore pretty fast, but he’s been pushing right through, and I’m proud of that.

On whether this could be Tray’s breakout year if he stays healthy:
I think he can and he deserves it. He’s been through a lot and he’s put in the hard work and a lot of sacrifice, so we’ve got high hopes for him.

On whether he’s been around another linebacker with such a special collection of tools:
Myself, none. I was here as a graduate assistant when Dontarrious was here and Karlos Dansby and those guys were special. Tray’s got that potential to be special.

Auburn released a transcript from Tommy Tuberville's preseason press conference today. I intended to just post a link to their official site so you could read it there, but it doesn't appear to be up. So here it is:

Opening statement:
“You would hope to be farther along than what we are. You always think that. After watching all the practice film over the last few days and our scrimmage, I think we’ve made a lot of progress. There is a good possibility we could have a good football team but a lot of things have to fall in place. You need to stay away from the injury bug as we found out pretty early losing a guy like Aairon Savage. It throws you in a tailspin trying to find who can play and who will step up. That’s probably thrown in into a situation where we’ll have to look a little harder at some of the true freshmen coming in. That will work itself out. I remember a few years ago we moved Tre Smith from running back to the secondary just trying to find someone we felt had some experience. We won’t do that. We won’t move anybody over. We feel like the freshmen are moving along pretty well and as a group we can fill that void. It’s hard to fill a void when you lose experience like that.

“Overall, our camp has gone well. The weather has cooperated. We’ve gotten a lot more done since the weather has been nice, other than the first couple of days where it was almost unbearable. I think the guys came in in good shape and with a good frame of mind. We’ve got good leadership. It really takes good leadership in a long camp like this one. Overall the guys have worked hard and we’ve got a chance to
get better if we keep working hard and are able to have guys out there consistently. We’ve even cut practices back in length. We looked at last year and practices were about 25 minutes longer but we’ve been getting more reps because of the tempo we are going at. We haven’t lost anything and knowing that is the reason we cut a little time out.


“Let’s talk about the offense first. Kodi (Burns) and Chris (Todd) both are a little tired. They are hanging in there. You need your quarterbacks to step up and show the players around them that they can withstand anything. You need good camaraderie and leadership out of your quarterbacks. Both these guys are good friends. They are competing well. We’re going to have to wait a little longer and see how they do
in the scrimmage coming up. I thought practice has been a pretty good indicator that both of them are going to be fine quarterbacks. They are able to do different things. They have different strengths but I love their frames of mind out there. They are team players and that’s what you have got to have at quarterback.

“Barrett Trotter and Neil Caudle are fighting it out to be No. 3 and I thought Neil played the best in practice since he’s been here. He’s throwing the ball better. I don’t have any preference there as I told Trotter. The best player is going to be No. 3 and be the guy that travels. We’ll continue to work all four of those guys.

“The area that we need to work to get more consistency is in the offensive line. The offensive line is the focal point of anything you do on offense. All it takes is one missed block from one of the five guys and you’ve got problems. We’ve looked at different scenarios. We want to have three centers. We’re moving people around just trying to find the right combination of the first two groups. We don’t have
many numbers there. We didn’t bring anyone in in terms of a signee. All the guys that are there now have been there and have played the positions they are playing so we’ve got a little experience coming out of spring practice with most of the guys. It looks good. Again, it’s hard to tell in two-a-days about your offensive line. Those are the guys who fatigue pretty quick, especially with the tempo of this
offense. The thing we want to make sure we do is have two healthy offensive lines so we can play a lot of players in the first few games of the season. As we go through the season you won’t see as much substitution because the tempo really takes something out of those guys.

“I like what Tyronne Green has done. He might be one of the better and quicker athletes we’ve had on the offensive line in a while. He doesn’t say a lot but he’s probably one of the most improved players we’ve had here over the last four or five years.

“Mike Berry will be a utility player for us. Could be a starter or could be a backup at a lot of positions. He has really performed for us.

“Of course, (Lee) Ziemba is Ziemba. He doesn’t know how good he could be. He’s a tough guy and he wants to learn. Sometimes he gets out of control but I’ve noticed in two-a-days he is much more patient in his technique.

“The offensive line is coming along. It’s harder on them probably than anybody with what they have to do mentally and physically.

“Tommy Trott has made some catches in these two-a-days that he wouldn’t have made these last couple of years. He made one of those today. He’s going to be a tremendous force in this offense. Gabe McKensie is much improved. Those guys have to be factors for you in this offense where they catch the ball, block and move around in the backfield. We’ll use both of those guys in several situations.

“The wide receiver position – wow! We’ve never had so many guys with opportunities to play. Greg Knox and Steve Ensminger are going to have some decisions to make as we go through this last scrimmage and are getting ready for game time. Darvin Adams has come out, he’s learning, he doesn’t say a lot but he’s been a factor in most
practices we’ve had in terms of running routes like they need to be run. It’s good to see young guys perform that well early. There are a lot of guys at the top that have a lot of experience playing in this league. When it all comes down to it, we’re going to have to have two groups that can get out there a make very few mental mistakes. It’s very important that wide receivers run the right routes, the correct
routes, the distance, the speed and be able to understand coverage. It’s going to be fun watching these receivers. We’re going to have a few playmakers. I think more and more of them are going to step up as we go along.

“Last week, Brad Lester and Ben Tate got some playing time like any scrimmage in the fall for guys who have been with us. You all know me. We’re not going to run the running backs too much. They are going to get all they need during the season. We did look at Eric Smith. He had a good day and made some yards. They call him ‘Little Rudi.’ He’s a guy the looks just like Rudi Johnson running the ball. He
slashes. He can run inside and out. I think the guy who is going to be our ace in the hole, if he can continue to stay healthy, is Tristan Davis. He’s really having a good fall camp so far. We just need to get enough practices out of him to where he can get back into playing shape. I’m proud of what he’s done and how he’s done it.

“We didn’t tackle very well in the scrimmage but that’s normal when you play an offense like we play in terms of having to make a lot of open-field tackles. It’s going to be fun to watch our front seven. I think this could be one of our better ones if we continue to stay healthy. We’re starting to build some depth. We’ve got some young linebackers, even some first- and second-year guys like Adam Herring,
that have a chance to play. They are starting to learn and understand this defense. We haven’t changed a whole lot. That’s helped all the younger players that redshirted last year.

“Our kicking game is up in the air. There’s going to be a lot of competition at the punting position. I think that’s an area where every day could make a difference. You love competition at that area because it forces you to work on the little things that could make a difference in the conference.

“It’s been a good camp. We’ve still got a dozen practices to go. We’re going to get one more scrimmage in a few days after Saturday depending on if our offense or defense feels like they need it. We’ll also have some kind of full speed kicking night inside the stadium to try and get some looks at some younger guys to try and get them on special teams.”

Q: At this point in camp, guys start talking about hitting a wall. How are you trying to prevent that?

Tuberville: Well, you change it up. Sometimes in the past we have changed it up and done team drills early and do individual last. I think that is the biggest thing that has happened, especially now because you get bored a little bit. We are not going to be a fancy team on offense or on defense. We never have been in terms of what you do in a certain play, you might look different in formation or in personnel on the
field. It is a lot of carry-over with what you do. As a head coach and with the coordinators, one thing that you do not want to set in is boredom. I have had teams where we have run sprints at the beginning and so you let them know that we will be running early and working on teamwork and drills after that. It is not rocket science, you just have to get in their heads and know where they are at and figure out what will motivate them so they will put out a little more in practice and
you get can a little more execution out of them.

Q: What were some of the most noticeable differences with the new clock rules during the scrimmage?

Tuberville: There really were not any. I think the officials had to adjust a couple of times and we brought our guy in. A paid official does not come from the SEC to run a 40-second clock. That comes from your school. You have to hire that person, but an alternate official does run the game clock, so we brought in our guy, someone who has done it for us for years. I think he lives in south Georgia, but he has had to come up and as I talked to him, it is very different. You have to learn hand signals, understand what you are doing, so he is kind of like an official on the field. But that is not going to bother us much because on offense, we are on the line of scrimmage as the ball is getting ready for play. You can see some definite differences for teams that huddle and take their time because you can obviously run a lot of time off the clock. I think the biggest rule change is going to be when the ball goes out of bounds and being brought back in, starting the clock. I think
that will be the biggest change in terms of cutting five or six plays out of the game and maybe more than that.

Q: Neil Caudle has done some holding in practice. Is he the kind of guy
you like in that kind of position?

Tuberville: What we are going to do is that (Clayton) Crofoot will be our holder .We are trying to work a scenario where we do not have to take another person in the kicking area that is holding so we wanted Neil to be our backup holder, and he will travel. Especially when you play as many freshmen as we will this year. And special teams really cut into your roster especially when you only have seventy people
travelling.

Q: How tough is it to rely on young freshman cornerbacks?

Tuberville: They are not freshman after a few games. If they have got enough ability to be here and to get a scholarship, then they can play. And most of them, that is an athletic position, and we have looked and talked about it where we have met a couple of these freshmen who did not do anything right in terms of alignment, footwork or turning, but they make the play. Now, once they learn then all the techniques are going to make them that much better. But the number one thing at corner is that
you have got to be able to play there. You have got to have speed, you have got to have quickness, and you have got to be able to break on the ball. And I really like all three guys that we are working right now and the young guys in terms of being able to get that done because we are going to have to play most of them.

Q: How conditioned will the defense be just from having to practice against an offense running spread all the time?

Tuberville: We do not even have to condition much anymore because for the hour and a half that we are out there they are constantly running, especially when you get to the team drills when there is not much standing around. I think it is going to help us, but you also have to watch it. You have to watch for when they start dragging and get tired because when you get fatigued, that is when you start picking up the
hamstrings, the quads and the ankles. When people do not move their feet that is when you get rolled up on. It is a concern and I have not let them run them much after practice except for maybe a couple of times. After watching this offense and the tempo on both sides of the ball, we are not going to have any problem being in shape.

Q: How has Tyronne Green changed since his move from defensive tackle?

Tuberville: When you look at most of the guys who we have had, a lot of the time it is the defensive players that are defensive players who have not played much offense who turn into great offensive linemen. Tyronne Green probably could’ve played defense, but he was borderline because of his weight and he really struggled with that. Because of that, he has got the natural ability to move across the line and move laterally and that really benefits him. He has got a bright future ahead of him, but we did not know whether he would make it so we made the decision to take
him from being a good defensive lineman and making him into a great offensive lineman. It really has benefitted him and he is a very physical player who plays low to the ground and has really good leverage and is flexible and he has really done well for us.

Q: How do you prepare the defense for a running offense after they’ve gone up against this passing offense?

Tuberville: Once we get past Saturday, we will probably start going for thirty minutes a day versus two back. We have chartered all of the games from last year and only about twenty percent of the time are you going to see two back. Most people are one back running zone play or about what we are running. They might have the quarterback right up under the center, but very few people will be running two back: us and Georgia. Georgia is a lot of one back, a lot of shotgun. Sometimes you think that football is a lot of two back, but it is not anymore. You are going to have a lot of change but it is not going to hurt us at all. I like the way we practice and how our offensive line comes off the line. The plays that we are running are basically the plays that we will be seeing a lot of this season whether they are a one or a two back.

Q: Do you think that the fullback will disappear completely or will it come back?

Tuberville: No, I think that there will be a place for it. It might not be a fullback. It might be a big tight end like we are doing. We are going to have Tommy Trott and Gabe McKenzie in the background. We have moved John Douglas, who was our fullback, to our slot position and we are going to move him around and throw the ball to him. I think that what you have probably seen over the years is that every fullback or small tight end is going to have to be more athletic because you are
going to ask more of him. But there is a place for a fullback in goal line. If you go back and look at what we have done in the past few years, our fullbacks usually played between twelve and sixteen plays a game, otherwise it was two tailbacks in the game or one back.

Here's all 10 minutes of what Tommy Tuberville had to say after today's scrimmage. I might post some thoughts on today later, but I might just blow it off. I don't understand what benefit they derive from this selective cloak-and-dagger routine. Seems Sabanitis is spreading over to East Alabama. I fully expect Tuberville to begin coloring his hair, get a facelift and start punctuating his sentences with "Aight" any day now. (That's a joke. Get over it you thin-skinned losers).

Opening comments:
It was a good start. We needed some kind of measuring point of where we’re at on both sides and even in kicking game. When you scrimmage for the first time, normally you don’t do that much on either side of the ball, you just look for execution. But we got a lot in on both sides, so we ran it today. There was some good and bad. Probably the thing I’m most disappointed in, we ran out of gas about 75 plays in. We probably ran around 100 plays. We lost our concentration. Few more penalties than we would have hoped, but we didn’t hold anything back on either side. We didn’t play some of the guys that’s been with us longer that much – Sen’Derrick went probably 25 plays, those type of guys – but offensively, we didn’t hold anything back. The quarterbacks looked pretty sharp considering it was the first time in the stadium throwing the ball around. But we ran it about half the time, threw it about half the time. There were some big plays. I thought we caught the ball well. The biggest thing, we ran the ball well after we caught it. That’s something we’re really working hard on, trying to get better at that and making yards after the catch. Defensively, just a bunch of missed assignments. We did miss some tackles. We didn’t tackle as well in the open field, but again, we were kinda gassed by really about three-quarters of the way through and it looked like we were running in mud. But that’s the reason you practice. We haven’t done that much conditioning to this point because we wanted to keep them as fresh as we could going through two-a-days and try not to cramp as many and keep as many out there as we possibly could, so they could learn. Now we’re to the point, we’ll go watch film this afternoon, we’ll make corrections, have walk-throughs tomorrow, we’ll come back and we’ll start conditioning after all the practices, or most of the practices we go through the next week. We’ll either scrimmage Friday night or Saturday of next week. We haven’t made up our mind, depending on how many people we’ve got back. But it was a good day. The running backs, we made some yards running the ball. That was good to see, knowing that we hadn’t done a lot towards the running game because most, half our practices have been non-contact in terms of no shoulder pads. So we’ll pick it up in terms of trying to get ‘em in shape and I think that’s one of the biggest disappointments. We didn’t turn the ball over. We didn’t throw any interceptions. We dropped it on the ground a couple times, but I thought the concentration there was pretty good. Overall, without looking at the film, I thought we were probably a little ahead of schedule, but there’s gonna be some things that we’re gonna really want to correct after we look at them on film in terms of steps and assignments and, you know, mental things that we’ve got to get corrected before we get into three weeks from tonight. Questions.

On the big plays on offense:
We had some good runs. We had one called back. (Philip Pierre-Louis) caught about an 80-yard touchdown pass, but we had too many receivers on the line of scrimmage, illegal receiver downfield. Eric Smith made some big running plays. It was mostly the younger guys that made plays, some of the newer guys that were out there for the first time. I thought our corners did good tackling once they caught the ball. There’s gonna be times that the ball’s gonna be caught in this offense that you’ve just gotta make sure that you don’t get yards after the catch. I thought the young corners, Neiko Thorpe and Hood, did a good job of tackling. We did play Powers some and McFadden some. They looked pretty good, did well, but we wanted to put the pressure on the younger guys that’s gonna obviously have to play because of injury.

Anybody get hurt?
No. Everbody’s in pretty good shape.

On if there are one or two people who helped themselves before he watches the tape:
The thing that you want to do is you want to look at the younger guys that were out there, like Eric Smith, running back. He did well. He did much better than we’d thought, mentally and physically, in the stadium for the first time. As I said, the two young corners, we wanted to put pressure on them and certainly did that today. They had to make some plays. We held out Mario Fannin, we didn’t use him, but when you scrimmage, the big thing obviously is getting it lined up and getting into organizational game mode with officials and the 40-second clock wasn’t any problem. I thought everybody, the officials and the players, did a good job getting the plays in. But the biggest thing you want to do is you want to get the quarterbacks out there and in a rhythm, and I thought they handled it pretty well. There were some times that they coulda done better. But we’re gonna have leadership out of our quarterbacks in terms of how this offense runs. I think today they were just trying to survive, trying to get themselves going (and not) worried about everybody else. But we’ve got to have some confidence out of Kodi and Chris going into the next few weeks of them knowing what they’re doing, what everybody else is doing and getting in a little bit better shape. But we’ll have to wait and see after we look at the film and linemen. The two guys that I saw at linebacker that I was impressed with was Adam Herring, made some good plays, and Spencer Pybus made some good plays. Both young players, Adam being here one year and Spencer here only a few weeks, those two guys are gonna have to play for us down the road and I thought they really did well. We played ‘em against the first-team offense some and they held their own fairly well. They made some mistakes, but physically it’s what we want to look at in the film, not mentally on the younger guys. Are they ready for the speed of the game in which they’re getting ready to get into on this level.

On whether he thinks the offense or defense is ahead at this point:
I thought the offense did better than we have in the past. But again, we’ve probably got more in. Again you say more in, you do fewer things in this offense out of a wider group of formations. It really gives you an opportunity to get mismatches and cause problems with the defense. If you’re looking at probably an advantage, I’d say right now the offense has gameplanned the defense better because the defense is not gameplanning them. They’re gameplanning themselves and trying to play fundamentals and techniques. There was some good on both sides. There’s got to be a lot of improvement in the next seven or eight days because week will be the last scrimmage. As I said, it’ll be Friday night or Saturday. Then we’ll start kinda grouping up and start getting ready for the season.

How is Marcus Jemison?
He’s going to Birmingham Monday. They don’t know. They’re going to evaluate him and see. It’s not his ankle, it’s his leg, so they’ll see if they’ve got to do anything with that. But he’s going to Birmingham Monday, we’ll know further after that. But he wasn’t out there today. We didn’t play Bosley. Anybody else?

Ziemba?
Ziemba played. He went every snap.

Clayton?
Clayton played every play.

On Fannin:
He will play next scrimmage. They wanted to look at the younger guys this week and knowing that he was gonna have to go through one scrimmage, they picked next week for him so we held him out.

Antonio Coleman:
Yeah he went every snap. Every snap that the ones were in there and that they wanted him to go. But he’s ready to go. Our punters did good. I thought that’s gonna be a battle there. It’s gonna be a battle to the end between Ryan and Durst. That’ll be an interesting scenario. Wesley won the field goal battle today. He kicked really well. I don’t think he missed – he might have missed one or two, maybe. I get ‘em confused watching them. We look at ‘em more on film than we do out there. But we were concerned a little bit about the 40-second clock, obviously with this offense we’re running. It’s as new for the officials as it is us. But it went pretty smooth. It is different. It’s gonna be different for the fans, it’s gonna be different for everybody. But when it goes to 25 and when it starts at 40, even the officials, you can tell they were thinking today other than reacting, so it’s good that they got work in it and we’ll do the same thing again next week.

There was one time when they got the ball spotted with about 14 seconds to go, but the rule is, and we all found out today, that if they start the 40-second clock – if the ball’s down and the 40-second clock starts – if they don’t have the ball spotted before 20 seconds, they will move it back to 25. You’ve got to have at least 20 seconds and there was one time out there early that they didn’t do that. They kinda stopped and kinda told us the mistake that they had made and what’s gonna happen. So that was a good understanding, because I don’t think we really understood how that would work.

Tommy Tuberville confirmed that Aairon Savage will miss the season after having surgery today on the right knee he injured on Monday. Here's some of what his roommate and fellow cornerback had to say about Savage and their situation at cornerback, where it appears they'll have even more need for some youngsters to step in and play now.

On Savage's approach to coming back next season:
I don’t even know if that’s on his mind right now, just because of the situation right now. I haven’t even talked to him about it. I didn’t even want to talk football with him about it, just to get it off his mind. But he’s a competitor. I’m pretty sure we’ll see Aairon back out here. He’s a competitor.

On the young guys who might play:
From what I’ve seen, Neiko and D. Hood, they’re out here competing every day. They’re getting a lot of reps with the twos. Both of them, like when I went to take my test yesterday, I heard Neiko was out here with the first team and got two or three picks. They’re competing. That’s all we’re asking right now is just for them to compete, and the game plan and the defensive scheme, that’ll come to them.

On the worst part of having to start two-a-days tomorrow:
Just knowing that you’ve got to do it. That’s the toughest, just waking up that morning and saying, ‘Dang, we’ve got two practices today.’ But once you’re out here, you’re out here. That’s how I see it. Once we cross that bridge right there, I’m like, ‘Let’s go on. Let’s get it rolling.’ But it’s camp. It’s supposed to be tough, so it’s nothing new.

Did you play as a true freshman?
I was gonna play and then a week before Georgia Tech, I broke my foot. I was out until Ole Miss week.

Compare how these young guys are to where you were at that same point.
I think it’s more of a mindset. I came in wanting to play, not caring who was in front. I came in wanting to compete, wanting to get a chance. I knew my job wasn’t going to be a starter, but I just wanted to be in the rotation. I see it out of some guys, but it just depends on where you come from and how you were brought up in high school. It’s a couple guys out here, it’s all new and everything’s going so fast to them and they don’t know how to keep up with the speed of the game. Then you see a few guys like I said, Neiko and D. Hood out here, they’re competing every day and trying their best to keep up. It’s hard for them, but they’re trying and that’s all you can ask for right now.

How much of a concern is it that some young guys are going to have to play?
I don’t think it concerns me. It’s just they need experience. A game or two is gonna help them out. Each week they’re gonna get better. I remember my redshirt freshman year and I came in LSU week, I was the third-string corner and two guys went down. I ended up starting from the second quarter on out. I was a freshman and it was just like (the situation) they’re in right now. I wasn’t a true freshman, but I was a freshman. It’s sorta the same situation. Once they’re out there and they get the reps and the feel for the game, it’ll come naturally to them.