Coffee and Magnolia: August 26th

Happy opening week Tuesday everyone. Here's what was happening in Auburnland yesterday.

The season's first Tiger Talk was last night, and AL.com has all the riveting updates from, "Frank calls in, but young fan already asked his question about receivers," to, "Young kid in crowd going by "Big Meat" asks a prank question about Alabama, but no one bites. Malzahn reminds crowd Auburn is playing Arkansas this week."

Some actual news did come out of yesterday's media and public sessions with the head coach and his coordinators. For instance, Robenson Therezie is "working through some eligibility issues," and Justin Garrett is the man at the Star position.

Malzahn also gave as good a report on Carl Lawson as we could expect, saying he's working his way back well from his knee surgery.

And we have a punt returner.

DC Ellis Johnson said he expects the experienced veterans that he knows and is comfortable with will get the bulk of the early opportunities in Saturday's game against Arkansas.

"I'm going to be careful, our very first ballgame being an SEC opponent, a 100-degree heat factor, and about 80-something-thousand people," Johnson said. "I'm going to err on the side of the veterans."

But he also believes some young players will eventually make an impact in his defense. Specifically Tre Williams, who Johnson said would probably grade out as his fourth best linebacker.

Ryan Black shared a video of offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee following up Sunday's practice by speaking with the press about his ties to Arkansas, as well as his quarterback situation for the season's opener.

If you care to hear Bret Bielema talk about this weekend's game, here you go. Also, Arkansas released their game notes.

Melvin Ray had a couple of articles written about him yesterday, including this one from Ryan Black. In it, Ray talks about developing his leadership qualities and his motto for this season, "Practice like a professional."

In basketball news (in August? - I can dig it), Auburn's new skipper, Bruce Pearl, had his show-cause penalty lifted this weekend and immediately launched Auburn's 2015 recruiting class into the top five nationally (top juco recruit T.J. Dunans is the latest commit), and drew considerable attention around the college hoops world.

Jay Tate has a column about this seemingly rapid ascension of Auburn basketball back into national relevancy. Let's hope we aren't getting ahead of ourselves.

Brandon Marcello wrote what was actually a much lengthier article than I was anticipating about Gus and his sweater vests. And just guess what depths he stooped to with his headline.

Finally, Arkansas quarterback Brandon Allen's motor vehicle was set ablaze.