Today's scrimmage

[Tigermike 3,050]

If anyone attends today's scrimmage, give us an update. Thanks.

[Auburn85 432]

How's the kicking game?

[AUloggerhead 2,252]

How's the kicking game?

149571[/snapback]

Punting was up & down. Kickoffs went back & forth.

[PChamp119 96]

FINALLY everyone has seen the light and that Brandon Cox... IS NOT AUBURN'S SAVIOR!

This kid has looked good against second string teams and the backups of the La Tech, La Monroe and The Citadel (Maybe some of the starters against a couple of those). And he has done bad too.

I don't mean to put down anyone for Auburn, but this is the stuff I have been talking about all along - he CAN NOT handle the speed and the rush of a real 1st string defense. And I'm sure some of y'all will be like, "Just give him time" but this kid does not have the mobility to avoid pressure and make something happen. The reason I loved Jason so much for 3 years was the fact that he would still find an open receiver while avoiding the rush. Maybe Cox sees open receivers better when fully protected - but QBs rarely have all the time in the world.

I am really glad to see that the defense is giving it everything they can to these young QBs so they can maybe learn to play against it.

God I wish we had a QB

[wesfau 0]

FINALLY everyone has seen the light and that Brandon Cox... IS NOT AUBURN'S SAVIOR!

This kid has looked good against second string teams and the backups of the La Tech, La Monroe and The Citadel (Maybe some of the starters against a couple of those). And he has done bad too.

I don't mean to put down anyone for Auburn, but this is the stuff I have been talking about all along - he CAN NOT handle the speed and the rush of a real 1st string defense. And I'm sure some of y'all will be like, "Just give him time" but this kid does not have the mobility to avoid pressure and make something happen. The reason I loved Jason so much for 3 years was the fact that he would still find an open receiver while avoiding the rush. Maybe Cox sees open receivers better when fully protected - but QBs rarely have all the time in the world.

I am really glad to see that the defense is giving it everything they can to these young QBs so they can maybe learn to play against it.

God I wish we had a QB

149576[/snapback]

You're an idiot. It's way too soon to call it one way or the other.

[PChamp119 96]

Yea cuz last year I was being harassed for saying JC was gonna be the leader of this team and the best player in the SEC, maybe the nation.... while everyone praised Cox as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Cox hasn't done anything ever to prove himself as even being anything short of a good QB. There is a reason Tuberville had to take back what he said about "Cox will play in every game - win, lose, or tie."

BTW... did anyone else notice that Kenny Irons is #23

[TitanTiger 20,509]

Whatever. Great to know you know so much after the first scrimmage of spring drills. Moron.

[Wishbone 0]

from auburntigers.com

Kenny Irons

Auburn's Defense Shined in Tigers' First Scrimmage Of The Spring

March 5, 2005

Kenny Irons

AUBURN -- Auburn’s defense shined in the early half of the Tigers’ first scrimmage of the spring as the Tigers participated in an hour and a half full-speed scrimmage on the practice fields in front of approximately 1,000 fans Saturday.  

“The intensity on defense was obviously very high early,” said head coach Tommy Tuberville.  “Offensively, we didn’t execute well at all in the first half of the scrimmage.  We came on strong at the end.  We had a lot of problems with the quarterback-center exchange.  That’s going to happen with a new center.  It will get better as continue to practice.  

“We threw a lot at the offense.  The quarterbacks didn’t do anything special.  Their heads are spinning.  We blitzed quite a bit today and that’s unusual for the first scrimmage.  We have no time to waste.  We have to get after it with these young quarterbacks and let them see everything they’re going to see.  Overall, it was a good day, but not great.  We have a lot of room to work and improve on.” 

The scrimmage pitted the first and second team offense against their defensive counterparts.  The offenses started from a variety of field locations including from their own 2-yard line.

Sophomore quarterback Brandon Cox who took snaps with the first-team offense, completed 8-of-22 passes for 97 yards and two touchdowns, both to Ben Obomanu.  Cox led Auburn on scoring drives of 40, 90, 20, and 20 yards and split time with Calvin Booker on a 86-yard drive that resulted in a field goal.  Booker was 3-of-8 for 28 yards and a touchdown while Blake Field was 3-of-10 for 28 yards and a touchdown.

Sophomore Carl Stewart led the running backs with 120 yards on 15 carries including a 2-yard touchdown run.  Junior Kenny Irons, who sat out last season after tranferring from South Carolina, finished with 98 yards on 11 carries including a scrimmage-long 61-yard run.  Tre Smith gained 35 yards on 12 carries and scored on a 1-yard touchdown run.

Auburn defense wreaked havoc in the Auburn backfield, totaling eight sacks.  Defensive end Quentin Groves led the team with four sacks and nine tackles while Stanley McClover finished with eight stops including three tackles for loss.  Linebacker Kevis Burnam scored a touchdown after intercepting a Calvin Booker pass and returning it 12 yards for a score.

The Tigers will take off Sunday and Monday before returning the practice fields Tuesday.  Auburn’s second full-scale scrimmage is slated for Saturday, March 12 at 10 a.m. at the practice fields.

Auburn quotes:

Defensive Coordinator David Gibbs

“To be the first scrimmage, I think the defense did well.  We got tired at the end of it so we made some mistakes, but overall I think it went well.  We have a lot to work on so we just have to continue to work hard and get better.”

Offensive Coordinator Al Borges

“It was a good first day.  We were really rough around the edges. We have to get better and make plays, especially the easy ones like when we had dropped balls that should have been caught.  I was very happy with how hard the running backs ran.  They showed a lot of toughness out there.  There were some things I did not like, but you have to expect that the quality of play in the first scrimmage would be down.”

Quarterback Brandon Cox

“The offense came out slow today, but we recovered. We made some mistakes, but we are going to go watch film and get better for next time.”

Quarterback Calvin Booker

"It was okay for the first scrimmage of the spring.  We have a lot to work on, but it is still the beginning of spring and you can't expect to be perfect.  If this was the first game of the season, we wouldn't have made the cut.  We had some positive and negative moments, but we will be alright in the end."

Defensive End Stanley McGlover

"It was 50/50 with defense today.  We have a lot of work to do.  Toward the end of the scrimmage, we started to wear down, but that comes with spring ball.  This year is a complete turn around from last year for me.  I got a lot of plays under my belt today.”

Running back Carl Stewart

“This is a good opportunity to go full speed against the defense.  We started off slow, but recovered from our mistakes a few series later.  I worked on my speed in the off-season and feel confident with the ball and catching out of the backfield.  I feel like the offense won the scrimmage hands down.”

Running back Kenny Irons

“The offense started off slow, but progressed.  Coach Borges talks about sparking first, and I feel like that is what we did in the second half.  We will find out how we really did when we get our grades and watch tape on Monday.  I think the offense won the second half because we were physical and held onto the ball.”

Looks like the runningbacks had a great scrimage.

[grnbaytiger 0]

So PC does you logic also bring you to the fact that Tre Smith is gonna bite also? I mean With that logic our starting backfield should be Stewart, Irons, and beg JC to come back. Come on it is the first scrimage, I have reality chewing at me and this means that I know that we lost alot of good talent but dont judge just off of one scrimage. To take up for cox he threw no ints and had two touchdowns and led our 1st string on drives of 40, 90,20,20 and split on an 86 yard drive with Booker. I have my doubts as well but until CTT or CAB say that we dont have a QB good enough to play I will hold judgement. And to borrow a line from Rick Pitino JC aint gonna walk through those doors folks, it aint gonna happen, we have a lot of great kids giving it thier all thats all I want from any AU team. PC ease up on cox Bro.

[mcgufcm 4,107]

***this is long***

okay i went, but i didn't get to see the "second half" (which is when we ran all the redzone stuff, and that's the only way the offense could score). i'm not ready to write off any of the qbs b/c they all looked average at best. cox couldn't handle the blitz. booker couldn't make reads. fields only threw the ball like twice in his first two series (he tucked it to run three times). borges is too good of a coach and those guys have too much talent to stay crappy though. at least one guy will step up, but if anyone thought we'd avoid a drop in qb production, you'll be disappointed.

i watched all the positions as for a while so i'll give you what i saw beyond poor qb play.

offense: leon is slow from the center exchange to his block. really slow. tj and josh were dominating him, but you could tell how good he could be, whenever he locked a guy up it was for good. i just don't know if he'll be a center. mcneil and reddick are WAY beyond dunlap (who gave up 2 sacks in 3 plays to Q at one point). the line was getting killed early, but they started to play a lot better as practice wore on.

tre's numbers don't match how hard he was running. i thought all the backs looked about even. tre had a couple of those bounce off ten guys runs. kenny is BY FAR the fastest of the backs (that 90 yard scoring drive of brandon's was due to a 60 yard run by irons). carl is a bruiser, but he looked a little faster than last year. he just doesn't have great acceleration, but once he's moving, he hits like a train. he ran over pat sims near the goal line.

the receivers looked like they were going half speed most of the time. ct played the scrimmage in sweat pants. devin looked the smoothest of all the receivers. mix didn't play. ben is a LOT bigger than he was. he's built like caddilac which blew my mind. he's a friend of mine. i hadn't seen him for about a month and he's gained at least ten pounds. much thicker than devin or ct. they dropped two balls while i was there, but mostly it was bad throws and tight coverage.

defense: the line looked great early. i mean great. tj was breaking through the line in a hurry. mcclover played well, but he struggled against big marcus. he still doesn't play heavy enough to be a left end either. groves is the fastest guy off the ball. he reminded me of freeney. and i'm not even kidding. he's not a great guy against the run, but he's lightening off the ball against the pass. we've got a major drop off from nose guard to tackle. we played dickens, doolittle, sims, and brown there and all of them were just okay.

the linebackers looked pretty good. first team was great (dede played in place of a.t. on the weakside). those three were really impressive. the backups really impressed me. i didn't know who the heck i was looking at, but the second team was 56, 57, and someone else. 56 brought the wood on kenny one time. blew. him. up. those guys have some speed. i don't think we'll be lacking there, and i don't know how easily any of those freshmen are going to get in the rotation.

the corners looked pretty good. montae looked smooth. he also played faster than he used to. he ran down kenny from way behind on that 60 yard run (passed three defenders to make the tackle). hobbs ran first team since irons didn't play. kevin looked pretty good, but he couldn't cover devin who was open a lot. zach ran second team behind montae. they tried a lot of other guys at the other spot. none of them looked that good to be honest.

the safeties played pretty well. we did some different stuff with will. he blitzed a lot. we used him and dede in zone blitzes where they lined up basically side by side and one of them would drop into coverage and the other would come on the blitz. pretty interesting to see this early. brock looked pretty good. i didn't really notice who the backups were. ferguson got some run at corner and safety.

i suppose that's about it. good scrimmage, but it would be an understatement to say we have a lot to work on.

[AURaptor 1,126]

FINALLY everyone has seen the light and that Brandon Cox... IS NOT AUBURN'S SAVIOR!

This kid has looked good against second string teams and the backups of the La Tech, La Monroe and The Citadel (Maybe some of the starters against a couple of those). And he has done bad too.

I don't mean to put down anyone for Auburn, but this is the stuff I have been talking about all along - he CAN NOT handle the speed and the rush of a real 1st string defense. And I'm sure some of y'all will be like, "Just give him time" but this kid does not have the mobility to avoid pressure and make something happen. The reason I loved Jason so much for 3 years was the fact that he would still find an open receiver while avoiding the rush. Maybe Cox sees open receivers better when fully protected - but QBs rarely have all the time in the world.

I am really glad to see that the defense is giving it everything they can to these young QBs so they can maybe learn to play against it.

God I wish we had a QB

149576[/snapback]

you're kidding, right?

[The Prowler 1]

Yup, the Sky Must be fallin'

[PChamp119 96]

So PC does you logic also bring you to the fact that Tre Smith is gonna bite also? I mean With that logic our starting backfield should be Stewart, Irons, and beg JC to come back. Come on it is the first scrimage, I have reality chewing at me and this means that I know that we lost alot of good talent but dont judge just off of one scrimage. To take up for cox he threw no ints and had two touchdowns and led our 1st string on drives of 40, 90,20,20 and split on an 86 yard drive with Booker. I have my doubts as well but until CTT or CAB say that we dont have a QB good enough to play I will hold judgement. And to borrow a line from Rick Pitino JC aint gonna walk through those doors folks, it aint gonna happen, we have a lot of great kids giving it thier all thats all I want from any AU team. PC ease up on cox Bro.

149586[/snapback]

No I am not worried about Tre at all. Did I say anything about him? Tre will be fine. He won't be no Carnell or Ronnie, but he'll be fine. I still think Kenny will be better, but I would like to think Tre could start over Carl - but I just don't know.

And you bring up all this JC and Pitino crap... I duno what you are trying to prove - yea I know JC won't be back and we have to work with what we got. You try pointing out the fact that he had scoring drives and no INT's. Stats don't win ball games. Teams win ball games. You see some of the "best" QBs out there make stats but down the stretch can't win the ball game. Hell David Green was one of the "best QBs" this year - he didn't look like it. I said it all preseason that he wasn't as all cracked up to be, but everyone thought he was the best QB in the nation. Stats mean CRAP! Good QBs defeat everyone but the great teams. Jason White - he couldn't beat a great team. He could beat Texas, but please... We all know Texas and the Big XII is overrated. Jason, when he had a team to back him up and receivers to catch the ball - had no problem defeating the best teams in the country. Brandon Cox is not the type of player that can beat a great team. I see him as the type that can keep us in the game (maybe), but on a final drive, won't be able to get the job done. He doesn't have the mobility to escape the pocket and without that... And that is what scares me about him. We will be in situations where we are driving and the defense blitzes and we are in 3rd and 4th and long.

I hope Cox proves me wrong... but stats will always be there, Cox can't just go and buy mobility and pocket awareness.

[Erik81 0]

when a QBs try to make reads and remember plays they play more tightly-just like Campbell during the spring last year-they do not improve as well or adjust to the blitz well-IT WAS THE FIRST SCRIMMAGE OF THE SPRING-FOUR PRACTICES-THE DEFENSE IS GOING TO WIN-he did come around towards the end and start looking good.

From Tubs-"Their heads are spinning. We blitzed quite a bit today and that’s unusual for the first scrimmage. We have no time to waste. We have to get after it with these young quarterbacks and let them see everything they’re going to see."

You are making some pretty bold statements for the first scrimmage of the spring-I'll garantee Al Borges disagrees with you-let's see the opinion of a moron on a message board or that of one of the best OCs in the business that interacts with Cox everyday-that's a close one-I'm sure you're right

Anyways, asides from the QBs starting out slow, I was impressed with Stewart and Irons-I read where they didn't try to do much with Tre. Irons long run was really impressive and he runs stronger than I thought-it's been hard to tell when they've either been in shorts or not tackling. I was impressed with Irons mainly because he runs alot harder than I thought he did-he seems to be a strong runner. The offensive line started doing alot better as the practice progressed and everything started opening up-I do not know if it is because TW and AW were not playing but I'm sure that helped. Tre probably has a 20 foot vertical. Weather or not Stewart runs vertically or not I think he can handle a lot a carries if we need him to. I wish Bell was practicing. Courtney Taylor hasn't been great this spring IMO-he has dropped alot of passes-he dropped a few yesterday-he'll turn it up in the summer.

[Ryan Sanders 123]

I don't think we need to worry about CT... He will be our main man!

[Erik81 0]

i'm not worried but he hasn't been in his normal form this spring IMO

here are some clips of practice-I don't have Realplayer so I haven't seen them

http://www.al.com/auburn/clips/

[aucanucktiger 1,798]

I saw Blake Fields play all through his highschool career and if he gets the opportunity to prove it (after all, his average size kept him from being that highly recruited), he has the smarts and physical tools to be a terrific SEC QB in the mode of Eric Zeir. At North Florida Christian he made a lot of defenders look foolish that are now playing Div. 1 ball.

[Wishbone 0]

I think QB size and especially QB 40 times are the most over rated statistic in football. If that were true then Pat Washington would be the greatest QB in Auburn History.

[cadillacattack 0]

leon is slow from the center exchange to his block. really slow. tj and josh were dominating him, but you could tell how good he could be, whenever he locked a guy up it was for good. i just don't know if he'll be a center.

I think you've touched on the one thing that worries me most about the offense. I'm convinced the QB's - all of them - will look much better under Borges continued tutilege. And don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of LH's, but as a tackle, not a center.....

[Longtrainn 2]

leon is slow from the center exchange to his block. really slow. tj and josh were dominating him, but you could tell how good he could be, whenever he locked a guy up it was for good. i just don't know if he'll be a center.

I think you've touched on the one thing that worries me most about the offense. I'm convinced the QB's - all of them - will look much better under Borges continued tutilege. And don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of LH's, but as a tackle, not a center.....

149639[/snapback]

Leon's not only a big, strong guy, he's a smart guy too. He's just never played C before. I mean, seriously, give the guy a break, he's been playing center for all of, what, a week? The coaches obviously think he's one of our 5 best OL and want to get him on the field. He'll catch on, but it's not going to happen overnight.

[AuNuma1 1]

FINALLY everyone has seen the light and that Brandon Cox... IS NOT AUBURN'S SAVIOR!

This kid has looked good against second string teams and the backups of the La Tech, La Monroe and The Citadel (Maybe some of the starters against a couple of those). And he has done bad too.

I don't mean to put down anyone for Auburn, but this is the stuff I have been talking about all along - he CAN NOT handle the speed and the rush of a real 1st string defense. And I'm sure some of y'all will be like, "Just give him time" but this kid does not have the mobility to avoid pressure and make something happen. The reason I loved Jason so much for 3 years was the fact that he would still find an open receiver while avoiding the rush. Maybe Cox sees open receivers better when fully protected - but QBs rarely have all the time in the world.

I am really glad to see that the defense is giving it everything they can to these young QBs so they can maybe learn to play against it.

God I wish we had a QB

149576[/snapback]

Good grief...you could make a really good argument for making ALL practices closed to the public with this post.

Dude...do us all a favor next time and stay away from the practice fields!