AU NOTEBOOK: Taylor not focused on other jobs

Trooper Taylor has never kept his ambitions secret.

Ultimately, the Auburn wide receivers coach wants to be a head coach someday.

With his name being floated around for the openings at Memphis and Western Kentucky, Taylor said his inbox and mailbox have been full with correspondence wondering if this will be the year he makes the jump.

Always one for words, Taylor said it’s not the time to discuss his future.

“The big deal for me is I’m focused on doing what we’re doing right now,” Taylor said. “There’s always a time and a place for that.

“My goals are to be a head coach one day, but right now my goal is to help this team become a championship-caliber football team.”

Taylor said he was “flattered” that his name has popped up, but will remain cautious in his pursuits.

“It has to be the right job for you anyway,” Taylor said. “You can’t go out there chasing every job or every rumor going on. It’s really important that you stay focused on what you’re doing because that could hurt you in recruiting if you take your focus away from what you’re doing here.

“That doesn’t help you move on to the next job.”

Taylor said he has interviewed for smaller head coaching jobs, but they weren’t right for him.

Gametime decision
Gene Chizik said Wednesday that he’ll decide who will return punts shortly before Saturday’s kickoff.

It appears Auburn will go in a different direction from Philip Pierre-Louis, who has held the job for more than a month, but had a rough outing against Furman.

“I don’t know exactly what direction we’re going to go at this point,” Chizik said. “But we’ve worked other options.”

Taylor, who supervises the punt returners, said he talked with Auburn High coach Tim Carter about the Tigers’ woes on punt returns, where they rank last in the SEC and 114th in the nation with an average of 3.8 yards of return.

“(Carter) said, ‘It’s like being in a slump,’” Taylor said. “I said, ‘No it’s not coach. You can bat your way out of a slump.’ Here, we don’t have time for a guy to bat his way out of a slump back there because it’s such an important job.”

Anthony Gulley said earlier in the week that he and Demond Washington had been working on punt returns at Sunday’s practice.

Two-way player
Chizik said Gulley, who has been shifted to cornerback because of depth issues, is still working on offense as well.

With Travante Stallworth out and Onterio McCalebb questionable, Gulley, who had two rushing touchdowns against Furman, will be a primary option on speed sweeps, Chizik said.

“How much we use him in that, we’ll see,” Chizik said. “But he’s definitely able to do it.”

Moving in
Wide receiver Tim Hawthorne caught his first pass of the season against Furman last week and is now poised to take on a bigger role in the Auburn offense, Taylor said.

Hawthorne missed the first two games of the season because of a foot injury he suffered during summer workouts.

Taylor said Hawthorne would be splitting time with Tommy Trott in the slot.

“The thing about Tim that he’s done is he’s fought through some wraths, mostly mine, with what he had to do on that football field,” Taylor said. “Especially once you’ve been injured, you have to be able to mentally come back from that, as well as physically. He’s made it back. He’s really done a good job.”

Rapping about ‘Smooth’
Taylor said his daughter Starr has taken a liking to Auburn’s leading wide receiver Darvin Adams — so much so that she’s written a rap song about him.

“My daughter, every game on the Walk she’s got to find him,” Taylor said. “She gets on my nerves about Darvin. She even wrote a rap song about Darvin. I said, ‘How ’bout rapping on some of that math homework?’

“She loves Smooth. He is a great kid.”

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