AU FOOTBALL: Tate always had confidence he could put up big numbers on Plains

In a word, Ben Tate is competitive.

OK, two words — really competitive.

When asked if it’s more fun to run away from a defender or through him, Tate smiled.

“It just depends on who that guy is and what’s at stake at the time,” he said.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ben Tate.

The most competitive guy on Auburn’s football team. Maybe, the most competitive guy in the state.

No, he didn’t say that.

But he did say that he feels like he’s the best running back in the state.

Sure, you remember. It was only posted all over every message board that begins and ends with Alabama.

In case you forgot, here’s what Tate told the Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald before last week’s loss to Georgia.

“I know I’m the best back in the state,” he said. “I bet, if you went and broke down film and asked teams in the SEC who is the best back in the state, I mean, I feel like it’s me.”

Again, ladies and gentlemen, Ben Tate.

Never short on words. Never short on confidence. Always answering. Always competing.

Why?

“He loves football,” AU head coach Gene Chizik said. “One thing about Ben, he loves the game. I mean he loves football. And that’s very, very evident. And he’s just a great competitor. He competes so much in this game because I think he loves this game.”

And it’s not just football.

It’s everything.

“Racing somebody or playing video games, I hate to lose,” Tate said.

Hates it.

And you can tell.

Take the end of the Georgia game for example. Tate couldn’t hide his emotions, crying on the sidelines after the 31-24 loss. That’s what happens when a guy who has to win goes an entire college career without beating one of his school’s biggest rivals.

“I wanted it so bad,” Tate said four days after the loss, still stinging. “To end my career against Georgia, 0-4 … phssshsh.”

Sky’s the limit?
Tate’s won a lot more than he’s lost. A lot more.

He’s also used to been the best at everything he’s attempted.

While at Snow Hill High School in Newark, Md., Tate set the state record for rushing yards in a career with 5,920. As a junior, Tate set the state record for most years in a season with 2,886. He scored 78 touchdowns in his high school career, including 41 in that mammoth junior campaign.

He was Maryland’s Gatorade State Player of the Year. Rated the sixth-best running back in the country.

Every accolade you can give a high school player, Tate had his name on.

Oh, and he graduated a semester early.

Competitive? Even the textbooks didn’t stand a chance.

At 17 years old, Tate enrolled at Auburn University for the 2006 spring semester. A boy amongst men?

Not the way Tate saw it.

As a freshman — who wasn’t old enough to buy a lottery ticket until a week before the Tigers’ first game against Washington State — Tate had lofty goals for his career.

“As a freshman, I thought I would come in, break a few records, do this do that, and be the big man on campus in a short period of time,” Tate said.

But it didn’t work out that way. At least not at first.

As a true freshman, Tate, playing behind future NFL second-round draft pick Kenny Irons, rushed for 392 yards on 54 carries and three touchdowns in nine games.

His sophomore year, Tate led the Tigers with 903 yards and eight touchdowns, splitting a lot of the second half of the season’s carries with Brad Lester, who sat out the first five games of the 2007 season.

Tate’s junior year — the year he was supposed to be Auburn’s feature back — turned out to be one he’d almost like to forget.

After nearly reaching the 1,000-yard mark as a sophomore, Tate expected big things in his third year on the Plains.

Enter Tony Franklin. Exit Tate’s hopes.

“My junior year, I definitely thought I’d have a better year than I had,” he said.

It’s no secret that Tate wasn’t happy with his role in Franklin’s spread offense. But even after Franklin was fired six games into last season, Tate still wasn’t able to shine like he had hoped.

He finished the year with just 664 yards on 159 carries and three scores. Not at all what he projected for himself.

“I just felt like my overall career wouldn’t be so up and down, more like an overall rise,” Tate said.

But did it mess with his confidence?

Umm, have you been reading?

“You have to go back and look at yourself and see what you can get better at,” Tate said of his first three years. “You have to stay confident in yourself. My confidence, it might have changed a little bit, but it doesn’t take much to get it back.”

Indeed.

And that’s exactly the way a running back has to be, says Tate’s current position coach, Curtis Luper.

“To play that position, you better know who you are and what you can do,” Luper said. “You’ve got to have confidence in yourself.

“I like the fact that Ben has that.”

Senior-year success
Coming into this season, the 5-foot-11, 220-pound running back knew it was going to be success or bust. Even though Gus Malzahn’s offense can be called a spread, its main focus is running the football.
Music to Tate’s ears.

And it’s showing, as Tate is obviously having the best season of his career, rushing for 1,209 yards on 225 carries and eight touchdowns with the Iron Bowl still to play.

At the time, those were comparable numbers to Mark Ingram.

You remember him? The one Tate “called out” in his quotes last week about being the best back in the state? Yeah, that guy.

Heading into Saturday’s win over Chattanooga, Ingram, Alabama’s sophomore running back and Heisman hopeful, had 1,297 yards and 10 touchdowns through 10 games.

But, of course, Alabama’s undefeated and ranked No. 2 in the country. Auburn’s 7-4 and looking down the barrel of a loaded Iron Bowl against that national championship contender.

The same team, which a year ago, beat Auburn, 36-0. The “Beatdown in T-Town” ring a bell?

It does for Tate.

You thought last week’s Georgia game hurt Tate? You thought that one was hard to get over?

Try 36-0. Try that one on for size.

“Wow. That’s all you can think to say is, wow,” Tate said of last year’s Iron Bowl. “In the history of this game, I don’t think there’s ever been a team that got beat by 36 points and not score a touchdown or put up any points.

“It’s pretty embarrassing to be a part of that. So we definitely want to redeem ourselves from that, just being embarrassed like that. Those six years in a row, it makes everybody forgot about that when you get beat 36-0.”

Respect and love
Zac Etheridge knows Ben Tate better than perhaps anyone at Auburn. The two have been roommates and best friends since arriving their freshman seasons.

He understands Tate. And he knows exactly what he means when he says something like being the best back in the state.

To Etheridge, that’s just Ben being Ben.

“I don’t see it as being arrogant,” Etheridge said. “He’s very confident in himself. He just wants to be the top guy. He’s just speaking on how he feels, that he wants to be the better guy.”

Etheridge sees how confident, and competitive, Tate is on a daily basis.

On the field and off it. Especially off it.

“We’re both very competitive,” Etheridge said. “We feed off each other, even though he’s on offense and I’m on defense. We always compare how we’re doing, you know, how many yards he gets against how many tackles I get.”

Then, they bring that competitiveness home and plug it into their PlayStation 3.

“When we play each other, it’s intense,” Etheridge said of their video-game matchups. “There’s not much talking, unless its trash talking. Both of us want to win.”

It gets so intense between the two, they’ve got to use their other roommate, H-back Mario Fannin, for relief.

“It’s more fun to play Mario,” Etheridge said. “When you play Ben, it’s intense.”

But Etheridge cautions you’ll miss the real Ben Tate if you just focus solely on the competitiveness.

At heart, Etheridge says, Tate’s “an all-around great guy.“

“He’s my brother,” the safety said.

And in that Georgia game, Tate showed that he was also Etheridge’s keeper.

On Oct. 31 in Auburn’s win over Ole Miss, Etheridge went down with the scariest of all football injuries. Attempting a tackle on Ole Miss running back Rodney Scott in the first quarter of the game, Etheridge went helmet-first into teammate Antonio Coleman’s shoulder pad.

The collision was fierce. And Etheridge got the worst of it, breaking his C5 vertebrae and tearing ligaments in his neck. Etheridge, who has to wear a neckbrace for the next three to four months, is expected to make a full recovery, but his future in football is still in doubt.

He might never play again.

He might never wear his No. 4 Auburn jersey again.

And it was with that thought in mind that Tate did what any brother would do. He traded in his No. 44 jersey for Etheridge’s No. 4 last Saturday in Athens.

“That just shows how good of a guy he is,” Etheridge said. “He wanted my jersey on the field. And with me sitting at home, watching the game on TV, it made me feel better to see my jersey on the field.

“It meant a lot to me. It just shows how much love and respect he has.”

For Tate, it was a no-brainer.

“It was just for Zac,” Tate said. “I just wanted to show my respect for him. And I also wanted to show the other guys my respect for him, and that he’s still a part of this team no matter what. It also just lets you think about, every time I looked at it, every time people looked at it, that you never know when it’s going to be over, so play hard.”

Like he always has.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ben Tate.

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