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By Jay Coulter
jccoulter@gmail.com
This year’s Auburn football team more resembles a season of Desperate Housewives than that of an SEC football season. Tommy Tuberville held his weekly press conference on Tuesday and reiterated that Brandon Cox was still his quarterback.
Meanwhile, when Christa Turner of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer asked backup quarterback Blake Field how many reps he got at Tuesday’s practice, he said, "No comment."
Fields followed up by saying that he was still battling for the backup position with freshman Kodi Burns. He went on to say that he didn’t know whether Burns would play this weekend. Is it possible that Burns has moved up the depth chart?
There have been rumblings around practice this week that Burns may see some spot duty similar to the way Tim Tebow was used at Florida last year. Wide receiver Robert Dunn told Turner that Burns had been running some draw plays during practice.
Of course, this flies in the face of what Tuberville said yesterday.
"Let a couple of more games go by and Kodi will be looking at redshirting for sure," said Tuberville on Monday.
This has the makings of a great drama – or sitcom.
Auburn currently ranks last in the SEC in offense and 102nd nationally.
Tuberville dismissed the boos that rained down on him in the closing seconds of regulation Saturday against South Florida. He’s received criticism here and on other message boards for not trying to get into field goal range on the last possession of the game. Tuberville elected to run the clock out and head to overtime.
He was asked by a reporter whether or not the riverboat gambler was gone.
"I'm a gambler, but I'm not that much of a gambler. I would have loved to have the last series we had against Kansas State back. You have to pick and choose. We ran the ball the first couple of plays to see if we could get anything. If we could have, we may have taken a shot," said Tuberville.
"We didn't get much on the first couple of plays so I decided to pull the plug. You have to go by your instinct. I'd do the same thing again. That wouldn't have been much of a gamble. That would have been suicide, trying to throw the ball deep against what they were doing defensively."
Tuberville said that he’s been taking an active role with the offense and feels good about the way his staff is going about finding playmakers.
"We talk about it. We watch film together. We talk about why we made this mistake. Is there anybody else we can put in there that won't make that mistake?' Sunday is our biggest day. We start early around 6 am, and we go until midnight. It's usually on past games. We get together and self scout.
We talk about changeovers. We start the gameplan once we feel we have the answers for something going wrong. That's a part of it. Sunday is your day to do that.
Look for Dunn and Tim Hawthorne to see more balls thrown their way this Saturday. Hawthorne is now running with the first team.
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Tuberville said that Croom was probably on a 10 year plan considering what he inherited. Something tells me Sylvester won’t get that long.
"I hear all of these things about Sylvester being on the `hot seat.' If Sylvester Croom is on the `hot seat,' then we need to look around the room and check ourselves. Here's a guy that came in and took over a program that was dismantled and out of control," said Tuberville.
"They needed someone to bring dignity and character back to their football program, and he has done that. I'm proud to say I'm a friend of his. He's done it the right way. He didn't just come in, skirt the rules and just try to throw a football team together to win. He's looking out for those young guys. He's doing it the right way," Tuberville continues.
"If he stays there long enough I'd like for my kids to play for him. He's the kind of coach that you would like to coach your kids."
Coach, if it’s alright with you, can my kids just play for you? I don’t want them to carry around the stigma of getting an education in Starkville, Mississippi.
I’ve got to share this story with you. It’s absolutely one of the funniest I’ve heard in a long time. This comes from the guys over at Roll Bama Roll. Don’t worry, they are good people, just misguided.
The story involves radio personality Herb Winches. If you live in the Birmingham area you are probably familiar with him.
Here’s a snippet from the post...
If you ever wondered why you should never listen to sports talk radio, take this into consideration...
Today, Herb Winches was being interviewed, and he was asked directly what he thought about the possibility of Les Miles taking the Michigan job. He replied, and I quote:
"Les Miles has an excellent relationship with Bo Schembechler. If Carr is gone after this year, there is no doubt that Bo will recommend to the Trustees that Les be their first choice."
Only one problem: Bo Schembechler died on November 17th, 2006.