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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Camp portion of practice winding down for Auburn, which begins classes Wednesday

We had a brief meeting with head coach Gene Chizik before tonight's practice. This is the only availability we had today. Here are the highlights:
  • Chizik stressed that the next few practices are important. Auburn has a walkthrough tonight, before practicing tomorrow evening. Tuesday is a scrimmage, the final two-a-day. Classes start Wednesday, when the team is off.
  • "These last three days before school starts in terms of focus in meetings and walkthroughs and practices, everything," Chizik said. "Not that any of them were not important but we're coming down to the end of the camp and in camp it's pretty much 24/7 football and we just know how it works. They've got a lot of things on their mind when school starts. Academically. So we're going to try to be focused and locked in here over the next three days and try to continue to grow as a football team and I think we're making some strides."
  • Chizik thought the showing at Fan Day was remarkable. "It was great," he said. "When we pulled up the arena, there was people everywhere. I've said it before, we've got the greatest fans in the country. Today was a great example of that."
  • On what he saw from the tape from Saturday's scrimmage: "I saw a little more consistency in what we were trying to do. Again, I saw some good things on offense, some good things on defense. I thought we tackled a little bit better defensively. Offensively, I think we had a few more explosive plays, certainly in the running game that we really, really need to shore up and get the running game going. But overall I think it was a consistency issue."
  • Chizik said the team is simply following the advice of the medical staff regarding safety Zac Etheridge (neck), who has yet to participate in a scrimmage with full contact. No timetable for when that might change.
  • No timeframe on choosing a backup quarterback either.
  • Chizik thinks the next couple days will be important in naming a right tackle. They'll be physical practices. "And then this week, again, we're trying to keep pushing in that direction, because when you hit that two-week mark before your first game, you've got to be really smart on how you practice," Chizik said. "So this next week is going to be very critical for the tackle position, because people are jockeying back and forth for who that's going to be." (Translation: they still don't know who it's going to be.)
  • Tuesday might be the last scrimmage. It might not. Chizik said if it is, the team will still try to get physical period of practice in that are scrimmage-like.
  • No target date for when the Tigers will switch from camp mode to game preparation mode, but Chizik said two weeks before the first game is usually the cutoff.

1 comment:

Tar Heel Tiger said...

AB - thanks for another great report!