AU FOOTBALL: Fans jumping on bandwagon, players try not to notice

Maybe it’s having their faces on a multi-million dollar scoreboard for 87,451 fans to see at every home game.

Or perhaps it’s all the Under Armour gear.

Whatever the case, Auburn players are recognizable when they walk around campus, fit themselves into a desk or even sidle up next to you in their car at a traffic light.

Local celebrity status has its fair share of perks, sure, but it also comes with an endless droning of football talk.

By the time you reach senior cornerback Walt McFadden’s age, it all starts to sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

Last year’s roller coaster ride of a season only made McFadden that much more numb to it all.

“We lost that LSU game and people were trying to say we’re not going to be SEC champions no more,” McFadden said in regards to AU’s 26-21 loss, which served as the first of six SEC losses in 2008.

“We won the Tennessee game and people were like, it’s a possibility. It’s just too much. The only person we listen to is Coach (Gene) Chizik and his staff.”

If that’s the case, all McFadden and his teammates have heard since their impressive 49-24 victory over Mississippi State are Wall Street-related metaphors.

Chizik, for one, isn’t buying the hype just yet surrounding his offensively reborn 2-0 team. Not yet, at least.

He’ll re-evaluate his portfolio after tonight’s game against West Virginia, a team that he said presents new and unique challenges to what he still considers his unproven team.

“We’re not ready to buy stock in Auburn football yet,” Chizik said. “It’s just not where we’re at. We’re just so far from that.”

It’s been a tenuous line Chizik has walked in the days after Auburn’s second consecutive offensive explosion.

While admitting that he’s been impressed and marginally surprised that the Tigers sit second in the nation in rushing offense and fourth in total offense, Chizik has repeatedly lamented that Auburn is nowhere near playing perfect football.

Think of it as a pat on the back followed by a swift kick in the pants. There shouldn’t be any problem with helmets feeling small because of swelled heads.

“When you sit in a film session, and you sit in and you watch all of the things that we’re not doing well, I don’t know how you could walk out of that meeting and feel good about where we’re at, anywhere offensively, defensively, special teams,” Chizik said. “I don’t think that that’s who we’re going to let them be.”

But what about the national pundits, who are only seeing three-digit jumps in a number of offensive categories and the same old tough Tigers defense?

The Tigers have gotten mentions everywhere from ESPN.com to the New York Times over the past week. Gus Malzahn was named the Rivals.com National Coordinator of the Week and a strong contingent of message-board posters are already worried that schools across the country have him lined up as their next head coach.

Add to it that some consider this a grudge match of sorts. As much as a win tonight could serve as a notification to the college football world that Auburn is for real, last year’s 34-17, nationally televised loss in Morgantown — a game Auburn led at one point, 17-3 — signified the final dagger in the Tigers’ lofty preseason expectations.

ESPN2 — not the “U” — is here for tonight’s game against a West Virginia team that received just a few more votes than the Tigers in this week’s Associated Press poll.

A national ranking — and all the added attention that comes with it — might just be on the line.

That one’s easier to deal with than the on-campus chatter, apparently.

“We ain’t worried about that,” middle linebacker Josh Bynes said. “They didn’t want to talk about us so now I don’t really care.”

Realizing the higher stakes of tonight’s game, though, has been unavoidable.

“It’s a chance to see how good we are as a team,” center Ryan Pugh said. “It’s a challenge, it’s going to be a lofty one and I think it’s going to be something as an offense we take upon ourselves to go out and be better this week than we were last week: to just keep putting points up, scoring and putting up yardage.”

But what about the previously offense-starved fans who have enjoyed the yard binge enough to think this year’s team could be something special?

Chizik had a simple message for whoever makes it out for tonight’s primetime game. Temper those expectations, but cheer as if it’s already bowl season.

“I want them to be excited about the future. It’s going to be very bright,” Chizik said. “Just like we’re trying to up our game this week, we’ve got to take it to a new level, we want our fans to be the absolute loudest stadium in the country. And we’re going to challenge them.

“I want them to be excited because we’re excited. But we have not arrived.”

And, if you don’t mind, McFadden prefers that you direct your Auburn football queries to someone else for now.

“You’re going to have some people that, if we lose a game, they might say we were lucky for the first two games,” McFadden said. “If we keep winning, they might just jump on the bandwagon and say, ‘We already knew. We were behind you 100 percent.’

“The only time I’ll care is if you see me in the SEC championship … I’ll tell you everything then.”

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