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Borges unlikely hero at AU

By Jay G. Tate

Montgomery Advertiser

AUBURN -- When Tommy Tuberville began searching for an offensive coordinator last winter, he knew exactly what he wanted.

Someone successful. Someone with the ability to innovate, to devise adjustments on the fly, to make a group of seniors weary of changes suddenly smitten.

Tuberville said it was an easy choice.

He hired a guy whose team went 2-10 last year.

"Some of you guys didn't think it was very good. But we won't take a roll call about some of the things written," Tuberville told a group of reporters this week.

"This is not my first rodeo, and I know a pretty good coach. Sometimes you tend not to look at people that are somewhere where they're not winning. That doesn't mean that they're not good football coaches."

Al Borges, whose teams at Indiana University won five games in two seasons, has been the most important hire of Tuberville's career. He's successfully designed an offense that maximizes the team's considerable talent, yet seems to confuse even the best defenses.

The Tigers' offense has a dramatically different look.

First of all, the ball moves forward. After a season in which Auburn struggled to generate offense its in most important games, the team now befuddles nearly every opponent it faces.

Wideouts shift from side to side, sometimes four players at a time. Tailback Ronnie Brown lines up in the slot. Or at fullback. Or out wide.

It's a shifting, maddening array of motion that many believe is the stuff of genius.

Just don't run that label by Borges. He'll snap.

"Genius has a connotation of a guy who has innate skill for schematics. I've never seen a guy like that," said Borges, who turns 49 on Friday. "The guys I know watch tapes, see how guys play and figure out ways to beat it. Nobody's born with the knowledge of how to beat a 4-deep coverage."

But he has it.

Everything about Borges is built on deception. He's added some plays to Auburn's offense, sure, but this is not a scheme designed to confuse defenses with a flurry of different concepts.

The offense is working because the plays often look different -- even when they're not.

Borges often winces while watching random games on television. Many teams stay with the same formations for series at a time -- Georgia used to run Power-I constantly during Jim Donnan's tenure -- which drives the Auburn coordinator crazy.

"I don't want that defense getting their cleats into the ground before the play," Borges said. "When you let a defense get comfortable, that's when you lose your advantage as an offense. I want the defense to have to really think about what's going on -- and having to move around to make adjustments."

Borges' deception goes beyond the field.

To know him is to like him. He mixes with people unusually well, managing to draw nicknames from half the people he knows because everyone feels like a friend.

Coaches around the office call him "Dr. Borges," because, well, it's funny. He's doesn't exactly look like the picture of health -- Borges carries around several extra pounds -- yet his approach to offense sometimes conjures images of a surgeon's attention to detail.

Quarterback Jason Campbell calls him "Santa Monica," for Borges' constant rants about days lounging on a California beach and soaking in the sun.

"It's a bad visual," Campbell said with a laugh.

But when Borges is ready for work, everybody must follow along.

The smile lacks permanence.

"If you mess up, he's going to get you," wideout Courtney Taylor said. "He's going to let you know. He'll snatch you up and put you in your place real fast. He's a likeable guy, but when you do wrong, he's going to be hard on you. You've got to love a guy like that. You've got to respect him because you feel he's a fair guy."

That fairness was preceded by Tuberville's decision. On one hand, he had interviewed Borges and felt that his personality and his system would work well on the Plains. There were plenty of good references -- including one from Auburn strength coach Kevin Yoxall, who worked with Borges while at UCLA in the 1990s.

Yet the record at Indiana was not good.

And Borges knew it.

"The media has a tendency to say that people are catching up with the offense. Or that the West Coast Offense has passed us by," Borges said. "It's not. It's a matter of execution -- not so much the Xs and Os as the Jimmys and Joes. Getting guys who can do what you want them to do."

During the interview, Borges explained that Auburn's advanced players would flourish in the same system Indiana used.

Sounds crazy.

It wasn't.

Auburn's offense has maintained its emphasis on the running games, yet overall production is up 14 percent. The team is averaging 428 yards of offense per game this season, up from 376 a year ago.

And the players say things are more fun than ever.

"I feel like this is the best (system) I've been in -- just because it's so unique," Campbell said.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/NEWSV5...5aufoot107w.htm

I think it's hilarious that JC calls him "Santa Monica"...LOL

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Similar article in the Mobile paper:

http://www.al.com/auburnfootball/mobilereg...40726201721.xml

Besides the "Santa Monica" nickname, as a son of the South, I really liked this comment in the Mobile article:

Borges said there is some difference in relating to a player from California and, say, rural Alabama or Mississippi, but that football is a universal language.

"Down here they say 'Yes, sir' all the time," Borges said. "There, they say, 'Now, how come I've got to do it like that?'

RESPECT!--another reason why the SEC is the top conference.

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