AUBURN, Ala. — Tony Barbee, a long-time protege of John Calipari, will now have a chance to match up against his mentor in the SEC.

Auburn hired Barbee as its head basketball coach Wednesday night. The 38-year-old Barbee spent the last four years at UTEP, where he went 82-52 and was the 2010 Conference USA Coach of the Year.

“We have challenges in front of us, but we also have great opportunities with everything Auburn has to offer — a great university, outstanding community, tremendous fan support, and a terrific new arena and practice facility," Barbee said in a press release. "The time is now to take Auburn basketball to new heights.”

The 38-year-old Barbee's hiring comes comes 12 days after Auburn fired Jeff Lebo after six seasons. He'll be formally introduced at a press conference today.

"Coach Barbee has a vision of competing for championships at Auburn, and the passion to get us there," Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs said. "He is a phenomenal coach, an outstanding recruiter and a fierce competitor. ... The bottom line is Tony Barbee is a winner."

Barbee was considered a hot commodity in the coaching market, having been linked to both the Iowa and DePaul jobs this offseason.

He was making $300,000 a year at UTEP and figures to earn a substantial raise. Jacobs said Auburn would be competitive in the SEC market. The school paid Lebo $785,000 a year, the lowest salary in the league.

Lebo, who was hired recently by East Carolina, is owed a $1.5 million buyout by Auburn. Barbee's buyout at UTEP is reportedly one year's salary, $300,000.

Barbee is the first black head basketball coach in the program's history. He joins track coach Ralph Spry Jr. as the only two minority head coaches at the school.

Auburn interviewed a host of candidates for the position, including former Tigers great and Los Angeles Lakers special assistant Chuck Person on Wednesday.

The school also showed interest in Minnesota's Tubby Smith and interviewed or contacted North Texas' Johnny Jones, Sam Houston State's Bob Marlin, Wright State's Brad Brownell, Morehead State's Donnie Tyndall and Minnesota Timberwolves assistant Reggie Theus.

A native of Indianapolis, Barbee has been associated with Calipari since he played for him at UMass from 1989-93. He got his coaching start at his alma mater as a graduate assistant from 1996-98.

After one season as an assistant with Wyoming, Barbee reunited with Calipari at UMass for a year. Barbee followed him to Memphis in 2000, serving as Calipari's top assistant and recruiter from for six seasons.

The Tigers won 148 games in that span. Rivals.com ranked Barbee as the No. 3 recruiter in the country while he was at Memphis.

Barbee took the UTEP job in 2006, taking the Miners from 10th place in the Conference USA to first in only four years. They went 26-7 this season and won the C-USA regular season title, making the NCAA tournament as a 12th seed. They lost to Butler in the first round.

Here is Barbee's bio on the UPEP athletics site.

Auburn coach Gene Chizik confirmed that Daren Bates, who earned SEC All-Freshman recognition last year after starting all 13 games at safety, will play some linebacker this season once he returns to full strength from offseason shoulder surgery.

“We’ve talked to him about playing some linebacker and really almost more of a nickel position,” Chizik said. “We played him in linebacker-ish type roles when we dropped him down in the box and him helping us on the run.

“It’s not really foreign to him. It’s more of a nickel mentality out there. When he’s ready to come back and be full-speed, he’ll be able to do both.”

The Tigers have a trio of veteran secondary members returning from injury — Zac Etheridge (neck), Aairon Savage (Achilles’) and Mike McNeil (leg) — making the move possible.

Bates will compete for playing time among a group of returning linebackers that include Josh Bynes, Craig Stevens and Eltoro Freeman.

“We’re going to get him out on the field whether he starts or not,” Bynes said. “It doesn’t matter. All four of us are going to go out there and compete and just play football.”

Here are some other notes and quotes from Auburn's first day of spring practice:

• The Bates move was done with quickness in mind. Chizik wants to get faster across the defensive side of the ball. "It's first and foremost to kind of go within our speed movement we're trying to incorporate," he said. "We're trying to get as much speed as we can on the field right now. Sometimes that involves moving guys closer to the line of scrimmage. Sometimes linebackers become defensive ends, sometimes safeties become linebackers, and things of that nature. We're always into the speed movement." Does that mean Auburn might give more 3-4 defensive looks this year. Chizik thinks so.

• Bynes had good things to say about fellow linebacker Freeman, who at times was overwhelmed by the speed of the game last spring: "He’s looking a lot better. I ask him something and he’ll tell me exactly where he’s supposed to go and what formation. He’s getting it down pat. After every play I ask him, ‘Toro, if this play happens, what you got?’ He’ll tell me right then and there. He doesn’t wait. This is the best I’ve seen him catch onto anything since we’ve been here. He’s becoming a better player."

• Chizik's general thoughts on the first day: "I thought it was a good opening day. I thought there was a lot of great effort out there. We're very rusty in a lot of ways but obviously it's easier your second time around. The expectations and everybody knowing where they're supposed to be at practice and the tempo of practice and things of that nature obviously are easy and were better today. We're looking for consistency in our practices in terms of not only just effort but execution on all sides of the ball."

• Several players were spectators on the first day of practice and may be that way for most of the spring. Left guard Mike Berry dressed out but did light work on the first day because of an undisclosed injury. When he wasn’t in the lineup, seniors Jorrell Bostrom and Bart Eddins took his place at left guard.

• Etheridge, who is attempting to come back from a serious neck injury suffered late last season, did not practice at all. “With some of our guys that have had some injury-proneness, we’re going to take them and do with them what we can,” Chizik said. “They are somewhat limited. We’re just trying to be very smart with how they progress.”

• Chizik said naming a starting quarterback by the end of spring is a priority, but the team will not be rushed into a decision. “We feel like whenever that develops and we’re able to do that because we’ve used great discernment and a lot of time to evaluate, then we’ll name who the starter is at that point,” he said.

• Rigth now, all four quarterbacks -- Cam Newton, Neil Caudle, Barrett Trotter and Clint Moseley -- are getting equal reps. "I told our guys, we're rotating four guys. You can't do that long," offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn said. "Hopefully we'll in a short period of time be able to narrow it down to possibly three and then two and, our goal would be, if we had the guy to be able to have a starter at the end of spring if that's possible, we're going to be 110 percent sure if we do that."

• I'll have a story for tomorrow's paper on Newton. Here's what Malzahn had to say about him: "He did OK. His head was spinning at times, but that's to be expected but he had a good attitude. Like I said, I really expect him to correct the mistakes every day."

• Malzahn said Auburn will try not to move offensive players around too much. "Starting out in spring, we're trying to keep our guys in one position as long as we can until we feel really good about having those positions down," Malzahn said. "Then, toward the end of the spring, the guys we feel like who have it down we'll be able to move them around."

• Malzahn on wide receivers Terrell Zachery and Darvin Adams: "Both those guys are light years ahead of where they were last year."

• Star recruit Michael Dyer's name came up Wednesday. Malzhan wasn't in the mood to talk about him. "We've got the guys we have in the spring," h e said. "We're trying to make them as good as they possibly can be and we're not really even thinking ahead as far as that goes. We do have some guys we really think can help us and Michael is one of those but we're really focused on the guys we have now trying to make them as good as they can possibly can."

• Anthony Gulley is now going by the name Anthony Morgan. The sophomore, who played on both sides of the ball last season, wore white and worked on defense Wednesday.

• Defensive coordinator Ted Roof on a pair of early enrollees, DE Craig Sanders and LB Jessel Curry, both of whom are freshmen: "It's their first college football practice today. They should be finishing up high school right now. They both did fine and I think that they both have very bright futures. I've been very impressed with both of them at this point."

• Junior college transfers Brandon Mosley and Roszell Gayden alternated working at right tackle during drills Wednesday. They are the frontrunners to replace Andrew McCain, who started all 13 games there last season. I plan on doing a story on those two later this week, so I'll save some of that material for then, although here's what Malzahn had to say about them: "Both those guys are big physical people. Both have good attitudes and are both real good competitors so that will give us a lot of depth we feel like, which we didn't have very much last year, especially up front."

Here's a seven-minute video of the highlights from our interview with Cam Newton earlier today. Like I wrote before, he's an engaging interview subject. Enjoy.

We just finished talking with Cam Newton for the first time, and I must say that he's an engaging interview. I'll have some video up in a bit, but here's a sampling of his answers:

(Talk about Auburn)
"The fans are excellent -- if I go to Walmart or I'm going to get something to eat. It's been excellent."

(Do people know you?)
"It wasn't that bad. I got a couple double takes. That's about it. A lot of times, people don't say anything to me. I think I'm a friendly guy."

(You were always a quarterback?)
"I started picking up the quarterback trade in high school. I've always been the defensive player, the linebacker, running back. I've always been the youngest but the biggest. When I got into high school, I was the guy who could throw it the farthest. The rest is history."

(How far could you throw?)
"When you're kids playing in the background, you just tell them to keep backing up."

(Talk about competing for the starting job)
"One thing about me: I don't want nothing given to me. Because first off, if something's given to you, here, you're the starter, then the respect level with your teammates, you're not going to have the same respect as if you earn everything that you get. So I want to earn, from earning Gatorade to earning the towel to earning anything. I want to earn all of my whatever. Because people are entitled to their own opinion about you. And if they see, oh, coach gave Cam the starting spot. No. They're going to say Cam earned the starting spot, and if I'm not the starter, it's because the person worked harder than me."

(Talk about your departure from Florida)
"While I was at Florida, of course a lot of people think I got kicked out of Florida. I did not get kicked out of Florida. I transferred from Florida. I had a legal issue, a slip-up with the computer issue that I had bought from a person, which was stolen. That issue was taken care of way before I even left Florida. The charges were dropped and what-not. But I left Florida because I felt like the type of player I was, I didn't want to sit behind no one, because I have dreams, I have aspirations to be a starter for a Division I NCAA team, and I think while I was at Florida, I probably wasn't going to get that, with Tim Tebow at the reigns and John Brantley, me and him at the same classification, something was going to have to give. So me, making a tough decision, I decided to transfer, leaving my friends that I had close bonds with for two years. It was pretty hard. And then I ended up going to junior college in Texas. The reason I went there was because I didn't want to sit out an extra year and have three years coming out of high school that I didn't play, to come to another school when I eventually could play. So I wanted to play in junior college to sharpen up my skills and what-not, just get back to playing football, because I hadn't played in the two years I was at Florida. I mean, started a whole four quarters of football."

(Was it your slip-up or someone else's?)
"It's mine. I mean, I'm a man. And if I did wrong, I'm going to say I did wrong. Knowing what I know now, would I have bought the computer? No. But being a man, you have to take full responsibility of the actions that you do. And I did. "

(What was it like going from Florida to Blinn Community College?)

"It was humbling. Take this: You got reporters asking you questions. At junior college, you could have the perfect day, you could go 20-for-20 for 500 yards passing and won't nobody know. Honestly, you don't have Gatorade in practice. You don't even have a ball boy half the time. I come from Florida, which is probably at the pinnacle of college football -- One day you're on top of the world and the next day the world could be on top of you, so to speak. Brenham, Texas, is in the middle of Houston and Austin, which is the middle of nothing. I'm from Atlanta, so I was waking up to buses and airplanes, I go to Florida and I'm waking up to the bus transit that comes around and then I come to Brenham and I'm waking up to cows. For a couple of months while I was there, I was heart-struck. At first, I thought my career as a football player was over. Luckily my determination and strong will to get better as a player and a person, God gave me a second chance to be recruited."

It's a football-heavy day but we at the blog won't overlook the basketball coaching search. According to a Kentucky TV station, Auburn has contacted Morehead State's Donnie Tyndall about its basketball head coaching vacancy.

Tyndall, 39, is in his fourth year at Morehead. He's led the Eagles to back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time in school history. He was the 2007-08 Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year.

"I'm very proud and happy to be the coach at MSU," Tyndall told the TV station. "My focus and energy are about building the program's success and getting the Eagles back to the NCAA tournament."

Tyndall led the Eagles to their first OVC tournament championship in 2009. It was Morehead State's first NCAA tournament appearance since 1984.

Tyndall was a Division I assistant for 10 years prior to getting the Morehead State job, with stops at LSU and Idaho.

Quarterback Tyrik Rollison was not present during Auburn's first day of spring football drills, although head coach Gene Chizik said the redshirt freshman remains a member of the team.

'He's still in school and he's concentrating solely on his academics," Chizik said. "Again, that's where his concentration is. And we'll see how it unfolds by the end of the semester. Right now, it's an academic thing."

Rollison wrote on his Facebook page last month that he planned on transferring, something Chizik refused to address Wednesday.

"I don't pay attention to any of the external hearsay," Chizik said. "He's in school in Auburn and he's focusing on academics. That's what I know."

Chizik said Rollison, who missed the Outback Bowl for academics, is currently eligible.

Auburn's roster did have some turnover. Fullback John Douglas, who was charged with a DUI in December and missed the bowl game, will transfer, Chizik said, although he wasn't sure where. Walk-on fullback Jason King, who also got a DUI, is no longer on the team.

Place-kicker Morgan Hull and reserve offensive lineman Darrell Roseman both graduated and have moved on.

We'll be back later with more updates from the first day of spring practice.

Here's some video I shot from today's first practice of the spring. The quality's not great. I'm still using a Flip cam. YouTube finally processed it, so here it is. Enjoy.

I'll be back later today after we do interviews.

Just got back from watching the first part of today's first spring practice. Here are few observations:

• Quarterback Cameron Newton is wearing No. 2 and certainly looks every bit of his 6-foot-6, 247 pounds. He definitely passes the eye test. (It's hard to tell in my hastily taken iPhone photo above, but he's on the far right.)
  

• Quarterback Tyrik Rollison, as expected, was not on the roster. He said on his Facebook page last month that he was transferring. Looks like he was serious.

• Saw a drill late in our viewing session with three quarterbacks throwing the ball -- Newton, Barrett Trotter and Clint Moseley. Neil Caudle was with the special teams as the holder. He did, however, re-join the group a little later.

• Fullback John Douglas was not at practice nor on the roster. Also no Jason King. Both were arrested for DUIs in December. We'll get more details on this later.

• Other noticeable absentees from the roster include PK Morgan Hull and OL Darrell Roseman.

• Junior college transfer Brandon Mosley was working with the first group at right tackle. Roszell Gayden was with the twos. Of course, this was just one drill, so don't read too much into it.

• Guard Mike Berry was out there but not participating. Jorell Bostrom and Bart Eddins took his place with the ones.

• Aairon Savage was back on the field looking spry. Missing two years will have that effect. Mike McNeil was out there as well.

• Safety/possible linebacker Daren Bates was in an orange jersey but not participating. I saw Zac Etheridge in the football complex but he did not dress out. I can't imagine him taking much contact, if any, this spring.

• New name alert: Anthony Gulley apparently is going by Anthony Morgan now. He was also wearing white and working on the defensive side of the ball.

Spring football gets underway today. Or maybe a better way to describe it for Auburn fans is that the post-signing day lull is over. I'll be at Auburn providing updates throughout the morning and early afternoon. We get to watch 30 minutes of practice, so some news is certain to come out of it. Get instant updates by following the blog on Twitter.

But to get you primed, here's my story today highlighting five questions heading into spring drills. Spoiler alert ... here are the five I chose for the story (you'll have to click on the link to read further):

1. Who, if anyone, will seize the starting quarterback job?
2. Is Mario Fannin the leading candidate to replace Ben Tate at running back?
3. Who will replace Andrew McCain at right tackle?
4. With Zac Etheridge, Aairon Savage and Mike McNeil all back, what does that mean for Auburn’s secondary?
5. How will Auburn cope with losing defensive end Antonio Coleman, the SEC sacks leader?

Got any other pressing questions about Auburn this spring? Post them in the comments. I'm curious to see what people think.

The blog wrote about Auburn being interested in interviewing Sam Houston State's Bob Marlin yesterday, but UTEP's Tony Barbee will also get a look. Here's today's story.

And here's a closer look at Barbee's resume:

• The 38-year-old is a hot name in the coaching market, rumored to be a candidate at both Iowa and DePaul.

• Barbee has been at John Calipari's side forever. He played for Calipari at UMass and got his coaching start with him there as a GA from 1995-98 and later as an assistant from 1999-2000. He followed him to Memphis from 2000-06, serving as his top assistant and recruiter.

• In four years at UTEP, Barbee is 82-52, taking the Miners from 10th place in the Conference USA to first.

• The Miners went 26-7 this year and won the Conference USA regular season title. They made the NCAA tournament as a 12th seed but lost to fifth-seeded Butler in the first round.

• Here's his full bio.