AUBURN NOTEBOOK: Powers, Carter could miss West Virginia game

In between recruiting trips Friday, Tommy Tuberville popped into the Auburn training room.

“It looked like a hospital,” Tuberville said.

Players who were still nursing injuries after Thursday’s practice were not able to skip town Friday and Saturday.

Apparently, many of Auburn’s players fell into that category.

One of those players, cornerback Jerraud Powers (hamstring), may not be healing as fast as expected. Powers said last week that he expects to play Thursday against West Virginia and defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads all but guaranteed the junior cornerback would be ready.

But on Sunday, Tuberville was a bit more skeptical.

“I don’t want to put him out there and lose him for the rest of the year,” Tuberville said. “We’re not going to take a chance with that.”

Powers was active during the first half of Sunday’s practice. He even ran 10 or so plays in 7-on-7 drills, safety Walt McFadden said.

“I peeked over there while he was doing drills, backpedaling and running. He’s getting back pretty fast,” McFadden said. “I think he should be back Thursday night.”

Defensive end Antoine Carter (ankle) appears to be the only other player whose status remains uncertain. Tuberville said Carter did not participate much in Sunday’s practice and was still “limping around.”

For the few non-injured Tigers, the two days off still served a purpose: a much-needed break from the everyday grind.

“It definitely helped just to get off your feet and really not think about football. I didn’t even watch football Saturday,” center Ryan Pugh said. “It really just helped us recharge our batteries and come back out here and have a practice like we did today.

“It was just fun to be back out there.”

Cotton happy
A visit from Tuberville and lead recruiter, linebackers coach James Willis, brought a smile to one of Auburn’s top verbal commitments this weekend.

Dual-threat, Fort Meade, Md., quarterback Ray Cotton said he remains committed to Auburn after the non-contact visit from the coaches Friday, according to Rivals.com.

Cotton, who threw for two touchdowns and ran for 97 yards in front of Tuberville and Willis, said he will make his official visit in November for the Georgia game and is not entertaining calls from any other schools, according to Rivals.com.

Scout.com ranks Cotton as the 20th best quarterback in the class of 2009, while Rivals.com rates him as the 12th-best dual-threat quarterback in the country.

Bundle up
Forecasts as of Sunday night have gametime temperatures in Morgantown, W. Va., hovering in the low 40’s and upper 30’s.

That bit of news brought out mixed reactions from Auburn’s players Sunday.

“You just got to keep your hands warm,” said Kodi Burns, a Fort Smith, Ark., native who said he had plenty of experience in cold-weather, and even snow-filled games.

On the other side of the ball, middle linebacker Josh Bynes, who grew up less than 15 minutes from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., didn’t pretend to be thrilled.

“I’m from the bottom of the map,” Bynes said. “The cold weather is all right, but when you get flowing the cold weather won’t affect you really that much.“

The coldest kickoff temperature all of last season was 50 degrees at the Iron Bowl. The last time Auburn had a kickoff temperature below 50 was at the 2007 Cotton Bowl, where it was 46. The coldest game Auburn has played in since 2000 was the 2000 Iron Bowl, where it was 41 degrees with freezing rain.

Auburn is 3-2 in sub-50 degree games since 2000.

Pugh joked that he prepared for Thursday’s game by staying in Auburn, where temperatures almost dropped into the 40’s Saturday night.

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