Offense Clicking In Friday Night Scrimmage

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Cox stars in fall's second scrimmage

Saturday, August 18, 2007

CHARLES GOLDBERG

News staff writer

AUBURN - Freshman quarterback Kodi Burns grabbed the headlines in Auburn's first scrimmage of the fall. Senior Brandon Cox yanked them back Friday night.

Auburn, Cox and the offense got more serious about the season in the Tigers' second scrimmage of the fall. The consensus was the offense performed much better in Round Two.

"We moved the ball all over the field," said coach Tommy Tuberville.

Particularly pleasing, said Cox, was Auburn's physical short-yardage game.

The scrimmage was closed to the public and the media, but those volunteering information said the first-team offense showed welcomed improvement against the first-team defense. The highlights included a "40- or 50-yard" touchdown run by Brad Lester and a 15-yard touchdown pass from Cox. But much of the talk was about a more fundamental approach.

"We were a lot more physical," Cox said. "We had a problem in the last scrimmage not converting on third-and-short and fourth-and-short, but, for the most part, we did that tonight."

Auburn showed it was more serious in this scrimmage, especially since the first game is just two weeks away. Scoring in goal-line situations seemed to indicate the goal of being more physical was achieved.

"You could tell in the attitude in our guys after the scrimmage they had more confidence, and throughout the scrimmage guys were excited to be moving the ball, especially on the goal-line series," Cox said.

Cox didn't throw an interception, said he wasn't sacked and even caught a misguided halfback pass from tailback Mario Fannin.

"I was just standing out there trying to stay out of the way, and he turns around and throws to me, so I just took off running."

Running?

"About five yards and they blew the whistle."

Burns, who won rave reviews for his performance in the first scrimmage last weekend, faced a tougher challenge this time because he wasn't facing the third-team defense. But the headline there should be that he was promoted to running the second-team offense with fellow quarterback Blake Field.

Cox said Burns' job this time was to set up the running game.

"He did good managing the game," Cox said. "He's still learning the signals, so that slowed the tempo down a little bit, but he'll get that."

"Brandon," Tuberville said, "was the only guy that did a whole lot. We turned the defense loose - let them do everything they wanted to do on first-, second- and third- team. It put the second- and third-team quarterbacks at a little bit of a disadvantage."

E-mail: cgoldberg@bhamnews.com