Coffee and Magnolia: July 11th

Apologies for the brevity today. A ninety mile trip home from Citi Field just took about three hours longer than it should have, and northwestern New Jersey apparently has few gas stations open past midnight, so it's 3:52 am and I'm passing out any second.

Defensive lineman Gabe Wright, center Reese Dismukes and guard Alex Kozan are all on the preseason watchlist for the Outland Trophy. Zeke Smith (1958) and Tracy Rocker (1988) previously won the award for Auburn. Wright was also placed on the Bronco Nasgurski watch list.

Ryan Black's fourth biggest talking point of Media Days is the situation surrounding the SEC Network, and taking so long to sign deals with major providers.

The O-A News continues Alex Byington's series previewing Auburn's opponents, covering the Texas A&M game in Thursday's paper.

Jay G. Tate's own preseason list of Auburn's best players continued with junior defensive back Joshua Holsey coming in at #25. The way Holsey comes back from his knee injury could be a really positive development this season.

This week's AL.com Auburn Podcast features chatter from Matt, Blake and WarBlogle on Hoover, and, more often than not, Media Days.

If you can stand Chris Berman then tune in for Josh Donaldson's appearance in Monday night's Home Run Derby. The Mobile and Auburn product was announced Thursday as American League captain Jose Bautista's final selection for his squad in the revamped version of the All-Star Week tradition. Rockies first baseman Justin Morneau was added to the NL side.

Golf Digest's recently put up their "My Shot" story by Jason Dufner in which he talks about all kinds of topics, including his thoughts on ghosts.

The Plainsman has a story about Cadillac returning to school this summer to finish his degree in sociology. It's kind of sad to read the words "with his playing career now behind him," but it's good to see him back on campus and talking about feeling at home still, ten years after he left.

And the War Eagle Reader has a post about Cam having a Gatorade bottle out with a comic book likeness of him on it called "The Blender," which honestly is not enticing to me as a Gatorade flavor name at all.

Enjoy your Friday everyone! Only a couple handfuls of non-football preceding Fridays left in 2014.