Tuberville: Offense performs well in scrimmage

Auburn’s spread offense is designed to wear down opposing defenses with a fast-paced, no-huddle approach. When the offense is really clicking, the quick pace limits defense’s opportunities to substitute and keeps defenders from catching their breath.

According to head coach Tommy Tuberville, that plan worked to perfection in Saturday’s scrimmage. The coach said the defense hit a wall about 75 plays into the 100-play scrimmage.

“We got kind of gassed about three-quarters of the way through, looked like we were running in mud,” Tuberville said of his defense. “That’s the reason you practice.”

With the defense trying to catch its breath, the offense was the big winner in the first scrimmage of the spring — or so Tuberville said. The head coach closed the scrimmage to the public and the media, admitting only selected boosters and their guests.

Then he took the secrecy a step further, canceling plans to allow coordinators Tony Franklin and Paul Rhoads to speak to the media and nixing an arrangement for reporters to interview quarterbacks Kodi Burns and Chris Todd.

With the rest of the coaching staff incommunicado and all but four players barred from speaking to the media, reporters had to take Tuberville’s word on the day’s events.

And Tuberville liked what he saw from the offense.

“Offensively, we didn’t hold anything back,” he said. “The quarterbacks looked pretty sharp, considering it was the first time in the stadium, throwing the ball around. … There were some big plays.”

For the first time in years, Auburn officials didn’t release any statistics from a preseason scrimmage. Tuberville said quarterbacks Kodi Burns and Chris Todd played well, as did all four scholarship running backs and freshman wideout Philip Pierre-Louis, but didn’t offer many numbers as evidence.

According to Tuberville, none of Auburn’s four quarterbacks threw an interception in the scrimmage, and all made some big plays.

Senior tailback Brad Lester, one of the four players cleared for post-practice interviews, took it a step further.

“I couldn’t even describe the big plays — there were so many of them,” he said. “We looked real good.”

Most starters on offense and defense played only a series or two before yielding the field to the younger players, according to Tuberville.

“The thing you want to do is you want to look at the younger guys that were out there,” he said.

It’s unusual for the offense to be ahead of the defense after just eight preseason practices. But Tuberville said the offense had an edge: Franklin’s spread offense features a less complicated playbook than former coordinator Al Borges’ scheme, so players spend less time learning plays and more time practicing them.

“You do fewer things in this offense out of a wider group of formations and it really gives you an opportunity to get mismatches and cause problems with the defense,” Tuberville said.

“If you’re looking at (who has) an advantage, I’d say right now the offense has game-planned the defense better because the defense is not game-planning them. They’re game-planning themselves and trying to play fundamentals and techniques.”

Cornerback Jerraud Powers said the offense-defense matchup was closer than Tuberville and Lester were willing to admit. Powers, like most of Auburn’s first-team defenders, only played a few snaps Saturday.

But while the first-team defense was on the field, Powers said, it held its own.

“I say it was probably a draw,” he said. “From the first-team standpoint, we were making a lot of plays.

“The offense had a few mistakes, but as it got late, we made a few mistakes,  and the offense sort of picked it up a little bit. I think it was pretty much balanced.”

Auburn will hold at least one more scrimmage before beginning game-week preparations for the Aug. 30 season opener against Louisiana-Monroe. Tuberville said the scrimmage will likely happen next Friday afternoon or next Saturday morning.

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