Monday, March 19, 2007

And I’m back!

As you may have noticed, I was away from the blog for awhile. My apologies.

Some A-Day housekeeping stuff first: Obviously, I was right on target with my MVP ballot. It’s nice to know I’m plugged into the collective consciousness of the Auburn beat writer community, which voted on the awards. Good times.

Some apologies are due to Zac Etheridge, who had a nice stat line: 10 tackles, nine with the first team. Somehow, I overlooked him. But Goggans had a good day too, and I’d say he deserved the award. I’m stubborn like that.

Cox, of course, was a no-brainer, and Matthew Motley get some well-deserved recognition. So there you go.

In other award-related news, John Vaughn was named the Shug Jordan Award winner as “the most outstanding senior football player” on last year’s team. I haven’t found anyone who really understands the reasoning behind this. Sure, Vaughn had a good senior year; Lou Groza award voters thought he was one of the nation’s three best kickers. He’s AU’s all-time leading scorer.

But let’s face it: He’s a kicker. He had four or five chances—at most—to make an impact in any given game. That makes him more valuable than Courtney Taylor, Will Herring, Ben Grubbs and David Irons? I’m not seeing it.

(Again, nothing against Vaughn, who’s always seemed like a really nice guy and is definitely a very good kicker.)

Moving on…

I’ve hesitated to mention it, because I don’t want to get too personal with you guys, but I’ve been dealing with a personal tragedy lately.

My TV died. (What, you were expecting something serious? It ain’t that kind of blog, kids.)

And talk about terrible timing! The first round of the NCAA Tournament, the best sports weekend of the year! One of the best episodes of my beloved Lost in recent memory! A great episode of Rome (by the way, if you’re not watching it, you should be)! It’s been tough. I just thank goodness I invested in a DVR, which faithfully recorded all my missed programming until I could replace my failed TV.

Which I’ve done. I wish this sentence was all about my new TV’s awesome flatscreen-ness and HD-ness and so forth, but not so much. It’s basically the same as my old TV, except this one didn’t come from a pawn shop in Tallahassee, Fla. Good times.

I’ll be back Tuesday. Be good until then. And all you John Vaughn fans out there, please take it easy on me in your e-mails.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

A-Day impressions, Part IV

With the end of the third quarter in sight, here’s my ballot for the A-Day MVPs. Still subject to change, but these guys are looking good.

Lionel James Offensive MVP: Brandon Cox, who just threw ANOTHER touchdown, this one a short flare route to Danny Perry that made the score 27-0, Blue. If you’re not watching in person or on TV, you wouldn’t believe how good Cox has looked today.

Mark Dorminey Defensive MVP: Michael Goggans. Tough choice, here...nobody’s looked particularly bad on defense, but nobody’s looked great either. Gets my vote ahead of Josh Hebert, who has the only interception. Goggans had a TON of tackles in the first half. Not bad for a guy who was a tight end five months ago.

Lewis Colbert Specialty MVP: Not sure why this is “Specialty” instead of “Special teams,” but whatever. I was tempted to cast a protest vote for the always-underappreciated Matt Clark, because none of the kickers or punters have really blown my socks off today. But then I remembered that Opelika grad Matthew Motley is the holder, and he’s had absolutely no problems whatsoever today (or any other day, come to think of it.) So there you go. Motley’s my pick.

Recruiting update

Auburnsports.com is reporting that Auburn picked up its second commitment for the 2007 class, from Pace, Fla., tight end Vance Smith.

I won’t write much about this here, because I don’t know anything about Smith—or any other high-schooler. But I do think it’s interesting Auburn continues to do so well recruiting tight ends, considering the relatively small role they play in the offense. In the last three recruiting seasons, AU has signed Gabe McKenzie, Tommy Trott, Andrew McCain, Bailey Woods and Brent Slusher. That’s five pretty touted recruits for a position that has totaled 866 receiving yards in the Al Borges era. (And around 40 percent of that came from Cooper Wallace’s 302 yards in 2004.)

(EDIT: I totally forgot about Michael Goggans, who is now a defensive end. So make that six touted recruits for that position, plus Smith. Then again, as my good friend Bryan Matthews points out, if Smiths redshirts, he’ll be a redshirt freshman in 2009 behind two seniors in Trott and McKenzie. So there you go.)

Of course, Smith, who’s listed at 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, might not be a tight end for long once he gets to Auburn. That’s what happened to McCain, who signed with Auburn as a tight end but moved to defense very early in his true freshman season before moving to offensive tackle last spring.

In other news, I hope you folks watched the end of regulation in the Xavier-Ohio State game. Man, was that exciting. It just happened to coincide with halftime at A-Day, which meant I was able to watch every second, including that amazing 3-pointer by OSU to tie the game at 62 with 2 seconds left and force OT. I’m guessing the Buckeyes will pull away in overtime. Too bad.

A-Day impressions, Part III

ANOTHER touchdown for the first-team offense. As my friend and colleague Tom Peavy just said, this is the most points for an A-Day game in a long time.

This one was a 35-yarder from Cox to Rod Smith. The drive lasted 92 yards.

I’ve been writing this a lot lately, but my gosh, Cox has looked good. He’s sharper than I’ve ever seen him. And Auburn’s defense is good...it’s not like he’s doing it against a bunch of tackling dummies. (Though, to be totally honest, there have been a few wide-open receivers today, which may look familiar to anyone who watched Auburn play defense last season.)

And that’s the first half. What have we seen so far?

Well, lots of scoring—the first-team offense leads 20-0. Cox has looked great. Field has been the next-best quarterback, at least to my untutored eye. Caudle’s thrown the ball with some confidence, but he’s not hitting as many passes as he needs to. Ensminger seems to force the ball a bit.

The run game has had its moments, but overall, the defense is winning that part of the battle.

No one is going to win or lose a job on what he does on A-Day, of course. But it’s fun to watch, which you can’t always say about these games.

Courtney Taylor update

Just saw Courtney Taylor being interviewed on the video board...here’s here to watch the game, along with a bunch of other former players, including Ronnie Brown, Marcus Washington and T.J. Jackson. One thing caught my eye: Courtney was wearing a Boston Red Sox hat, which—aside from being an incredibly poor choice of Major League team, reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to post here.

In his blog for the Boston Herald, Albert Breer reports that the NFL’s New England Patriots are interested in Courtney...interested enough to send their receivers coach to Auburn to work him out privately. Take it with a grain of salt: The source of the report is Courtney’s agent, and agents aren’t exactly 100 percent credible when it comes to stuff like this. But if it’s true, it’s obviously good news for Courtney. Impressing any NFL team is big for any prospect. Impressing a team as well-run as the Patriots is especially good.

(While I was writing this, the first-team offense scored again. Montez Billings with a nice catch right at the goal line. Gornall made the PAT this time.)