Coffee and Magnolia: 6 January 2015

AUBURN FOOTBALL

Nick Marshall is ready to pass the torch on to next year's heir apparent at the QB position. He says it's "team Johnson," now. Jeremy Johnson is the presumed starter, though Sean White and Jason Smith will have a chance to win the job. I think everyone expects Jeremy to win it, but don't be surprised if it takes until just before the season begins for a starter to be named.

It really is a shame that Auburn's defense tanked down the stretch. Had Auburn been winning those games, Nick Marshall's progression as a passing quarterback would be spoken of much more. Many of Marshall's best games as a passer were down that stretch of losses.

Josh Holsey has played just about every position in the defensive backfield over the past few seasons, and he's ready to play whichever one he's needed at the most next season.

If you're someone who chooses an NFL playoff team to root for (once your team has been eliminated) based on who has the most Auburn players, then you're down to one team, now: The Carolina Panthers and Cam Newton. War Cam Eagle.

Some of Auburn's commits and targets took part in the high-school all star games over the weekend. We did a short write-up on the highlights.

I also got bored and decided to figure out what video College and Magnolia would have set to play in the final seconds of these here internets before the apocalypse. Follow the link and you'll see that while it's a crazy thing to write about, it had an origin in something that was actually in the news, yesterday.

AUBURN BASKETBALL

Bruce Pearl's weekly press conference was yesterday morning. As usual, we collected the tweets from the beat writers into a somewhat coherent recap.

The Tigers will begin SEC play tonight at Vanderbilt. Auburn has lost 14 consecutive road openers and nine straight to Vanderbilt. The Tigers are on a five game winning streak and hoping to gain some respect early on in the SEC race.