Answers will come on the field

I talked about this in my column for Friday’s edition of the Opelika-Auburn News, but I think it’s important for everyone to understand that question marks are rampant on every college football team across the country.
That’s why it’s preaseason. If there were nothing to second guess, they wouldn’t have to practice. Everyone would just show up on Saturday’s and the games would be played.
You wouldn’t have to go through the two-a-days, the heat, the sunburn, the monotony or the pain of practice. To take a page from the Herm Edwards’ playbook ... “You practice to get better. You don’t practice just to practice. You practice to get better.“ You also practice to make sure you know who can play and who can’t.
Auburn’s no different from any other team. However, Auburn does have some pretty heavy questions still lingering out there. Can a true freshman really play right tackle in this offense? Can the young receivers handle the pressure? Can Brandon Cox stay healthy? Can Quentin Groves dominate a game now that every defensive coordinator in the country knows who he is? Can the Tigers’ kicking game hold its own with new, unproven feet? Can Auburn survive its road schedule?
All legit questions that, right now, there aren’t any answers for. Why?
Because the 2007 version of the Auburn Tigers haven’t played a game yet. And until they do, no one, not even us the media who loves to second, third and quadruple guess, can know what’s going to happen.
That’s the beauty of football. It’s played on the field. All the answers will come out between the lines. There’s no hiding. There’s no running. There’s no fooling. If you are a bad team, you will get exposed on the gridiron. If you can’t play, everyone will know ... individually and as a team. Until then, it’s all a guessing game. Not a football game.
But we’ll find out soon enough.
We’ll all know the kind of team Auburn is once the Tigers play their first game on Pat Dye Field at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Sept. 1 against Kansas State. That’s when the answers will come.
So get your questions ready.

RT most important position on the field

I was out at practice Wednesday afternoon and realized how much I love watching the linemen go at it. As a former lineman, I can’t get enough of watching pass-protection and run-blocking drills where two guys just get after each other.
It’s mostly all I watch at practice. First, because it’s familiar to me and 2) because the O-line and D-line coaches are always good for a laugh. And they can motivate. Plus, you can only watch so much 7-on-7 to where you need to see some hitting.

Freshman Lee Ziemba got the nod for starting right tackle prior to Wednesday’s practice. Ziemba, as a freshman, has the size. He’s 6-8, 297. But he’s still young. I don’t have anything against a freshman playing right away, but you’ve got to remember, the right tackle spot protects Brandon Cox’s blind side.
I don’t care if the guys a senior or a freshman, he’d better be good. That position is the most important on the field when you have a left-handed quarterback. Ziemba seemed to hold his own Wednesday when I saw him. But as offensive line coach Hugh Nall said, the freshman from Rogers, Ark., has a long way to go in catching up to the speed of the game.
However, he does have one thing going for him. If he can go against Quentin Groves everyday in practice for the next three weeks, by kickoff Sept. 1 against Kansas State, Ziemba should be ready to go.
But it starts now. If it’s Ziemba at right tackle, he needs to practice with the Ones every day. As a unit, the offensive line needs to play together (with the same people at the same position) for as long as possible.
Sure, it’s still early, and Nall is still trying to get the best players in the best position, but time’s running out. The first game is coming faster than Groves is off the edge.

Coach Groves

Today, Tommy Tuberville addressed the media in his first “formal” press conference since SEC Media Days in late July. Tubs even wore a tie ... and a Salmon-colored shirt.

The 30-minute presser was filled with interesting tidbits, and you can watch the entire conference on AuburnVersus.com. Just click the “video” link when you get there. It should be up later this afternoon.

For me, there were two things that stuck out. First, Tuberville dropped the “technique” word about 57 times. Well, maybe not that many, but he was trying to prove a point. After every position or individual player he was asked about, he made sure to talk about how important technique was to every player and every position.
It’s something the AU coaches are focusing on. A lot.
“(We’re) trying to teach fundamentals to all the guys. From Quentin Groves on down,“ Tuberville said.

The second thing that stuck out, speaking of Quentin Groves, was this ...

“Right tackle is going to be interesting,“ Tuberville said. “I think that it’s going to be right tackle by committee for the next couple weeks.
“Quentin Groves is a guy we’re putting over the left side of the defense, the right side of the offensive line. We want to find out one that can compete against him. If you can block Quentin coming off the corner, you’re going to have a pretty good offensive lineman.
We’re giving Quentin full responsibility for training that right offensive tackle. And he’s a pretty good job of schooling early.“

In my experience, if you want to make someone better, you’ve got to let him get beat up by the best guy on your team. Time will tell if Coach Groves gets his point across.

Cox returns to practice

Collin Mickle
Staff Writer

It didn’t take Brandon Cox long to form an opinion about Auburn’s preseason practice.
His opinion?
It’s hot.
Cox, AU’s starting quarterback, missed the first two days of practice with flu-like symptoms. The senior recovered in time for Saturday afternoon’s session.

“It’s good to be back here, but I don’t know about the heat,” Cox said with a smile. “The heat’s been a little rough.”
Saturday’s session was AU’s last split-squad practice and the first in “shells” — helmets, shorts and shoulder pads.
The schedule picks up steam soon: Sunday’s practice will be the first full-squad session, and Monday’s will be the first in full pads. Tuesday will be the first two-a-day practice, with sessions scheduled at 8:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Head coach Tommy Tuberville said Cox performed well Saturday, despite the heat and humidity.
“He looked tired,” Tuberville said. “He was a little rusty. He got tired about three-quarters of the way through. To come out in this heat — I don’t know whether I would have come or not.

“I would have stayed in. But he pushed through it.”
With Cox sidelined, reserves Blake Field, Neil Caudle, Steven Ensminger and Kodi Burns picked up extra reps in practice. Cox, who watched film of the previous two days’ practices, liked what he saw from the backups.

“For the most part, they’ve done really well,” Cox said. “They’ve continued to get better each day and not taken any steps backwards.”

Head coach Tuberville said Field, who finished spring practice as the No. 2 quarterback, is still improving.
“He’s really gotten better,” Tuberville said. “He’s practicing better, a little more focused. He knows the offense a lot better. That always helps.”

Injury report
Fullback Carl Stewart (hamstring) didn’t attend practice. The senior starter is expected back in three or four days.
Starting center Jason Bosley didn’t participate in contact drills. Tuberville said Bosley strained a pectoral muscle during an offseason weight-lifting session. In Bosley’s absence, redshirt freshman Mike Berry and senior Leon Hart split time at center.

Defensive end Darrell Roseman missed his second practice. The redshirt freshman is attending his grandfather’s funeral and should be back Monday.

Defensive end Antonio Coleman (ankle) returned to practice in Saturday afternoon’s session after missing the first two days.

Recruit visits practice
Shades Valley defensive end Cameron Henderson observed both of Saturday’s practice session. The 6-foot-5, 240-pound Henderson is being recruited by Auburn, Arkansas and Mississippi State.

Henderson recorded 45 tackles and six sacks as a junior.

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Do preseason polls matter?

Auburn’s was picked 14th in today’s USA Today/Coaches preseason poll.

Here’s my take on preseason polls and what it means for Auburn.
Basically, preseason polls shouldn’t exist. Polls as a whole shouldn’t exist until October at the earliest. A team should play a minimum of four or five games before anyone’s allowed to rank them. Sure, you should be able to make predictions, that’s our job as the media. We can talk and talk and talk about how good a team is or isn’t for days, weeks, months. But as far as a poll that will go a long way to determining where a team is and where it will finish, that should be held off for at least a couple games.

Here’s a column I wrote last year about this whole scenario and how it pertained to Auburn at the time ....

Preseason Polls Do Matter
First published in the Opelika-Auburn News on Aug. 5, 2006

By MIKE SZVETITZ
Opelika-Auburn News

The USA Today coaches’ poll is now out.
Let the sports talk-show phone lines light up. It’s time for the real madness to begin.
In one of three polls that will determine which teams will play for the college football national championship, Ohio State has the early lead at No. 1.
Texas is second, followed by a tie for third between Notre Dame and Southern Cal. Oklahoma rounds out the top five (the votes had to be in by mid-July). And Auburn sits at the sixth spot.
If any of these are your team, and you haven’t been ranting and raving about them all summer, it’s time to pick up the phone and call 1-800-Say-ESPN and get your voice heard. Stat. Unless you’re an Oklahoma fan.
On the Plains, you’ve been screaming for months. But you’ve also been scared.
You understand what a high ranking means. And it’s not good (see: 2003). This year, the Tigers have the same ranking as they did three years ago.
“Maybe we’ll do better this time,” AU head coach Tommy Tuberville said of the 2003 season where the Tigers went 8-5 after being picked by some publications to win it all. “We can’t do much worse.”
Well, maybe they could. But it’s unlikely.
They can do better, however. And the No. 6 ranking is a good start.
A preseason ranking like this can only help. Unless you don’t score a touchdown in the first two games (again, see: 2003).
But Tubs has already forgotten about that. And he’s not really too caught up in this ranking either.
“I voted the other way so bad, I’m surprised we ended up in the top 25,” Tuberville joked after Friday’s practice. He also said Auburn’s lone No. 1 vote didn’t come from his ballot.
“It wasn’t me,” he said.
But maybe it shoulda been.
Auburn coaches, players and fans should welcome the high grade. Even though it’s preseason, the higher the ranking, the better the chance for a national title (See: 2004).
In 2004, Auburn was ranked 17th by the coaches in the preseason poll (18th by the Associated Press).
Yes, Auburn vaulted up to No. 3, but never any closer, even though the Tigers were undefeated. In front of Auburn, and the rest of the country all year, were Oklahoma (No. 2) and Southern Cal (No. 1), both of which were also unbeaten. The Tigers could never get past those two, hence, being left out of the national championship game after finishing the SEC perfect.
Right or wrong, it was (and is) the way the system worked.
Plus, how could you bump a team which had been ranked in the top-two spots all year, and put in another team that came out of nowhere? You couldn’t. The BCS didn’t.
Even though Auburn would have given USC a much better game than Oklahoma, it never got the chance. But that’s a column for another day. Actually, it was a column for a previous day. One in 2004.
Now, we’re talking about 2006. The present. And Auburn’s future.
Tuberville doesn’t put much stock into preseason polls. He shouldn’t.
Pollsters shouldn’t start keeping tabs on teams until at least October, maybe even November.
A preseason poll is all about “what could be.” Football is about “what really is.”
You will read articles about what Oklahoma could have been had star quarterback Rhett Bomar not have taken money he didn’t earn for work he didn’t do. Fans and journalists love to talk about what “could have been.”
Heck, you couldn’t get a McGriddle at McDonald’s in Auburn two years ago without someone telling you about how Auburn got hosed and if only there were a playoff.
But on the field, it’s about “what have you done for me lately.” Not “if only.”
And that’s the problem with preseason polls. But, yet again, that’s a column for another day.
We’re talking about now. And now, preseason polls, whether voters want to admit it or not, matter.
They matter now, and they’ll matter in December and January.
And no matter what Tuberville or anyone says, the truth is, where you start determines where you finish.