Friday, March 16, 2007

Looking ahead to A-Day

As I write this, it’s 11 p.m. (Central) Friday night, which means we’re only about 14 hours away from the start of A-Day. I’m sure you can feel my excitement from wherever you’re sitting.

But it will be a big day for a lot of Auburn players. As I wrote in tomorrow’s Opelika-Auburn News, there are quite a few Auburn players—mostly the redshirt freshmen, but also a few walk-ons—who have never experienced anything like this in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Sure, they attended games last season and stood on the sideline. A few of them might even have dressed out. But A-Day will be their first chance to run out onto the field and actually play. That’s gotta make a big difference.

Stuff like that—those kids’ excitement when they take the field and hear the crowd roar—helps keep A-Day interesting, which isn’t always easy. One sad consequence of the NCAA’s decision to limit teams to just 15 practices is that a lot of the charm has gone out of spring games, and not just at Auburn.

Back when spring practice lasted as long as coaches felt like having it, the spring game was a real game. Players or coaches picked sides and played an honest-to-goodness game, with evenly matched teams and a real score. My colleague Phillip Marshall of the Huntsville Times tells a funny story about one of Pat Dye’s A-Day games, when media coached the teams, print guys vs. TV guys. That’s the kind of silliness that spring games should be all about.

Now, A-Day is just another controlled scrimmage, because it’s one of AU’s precious 15 practice days, and therefore too valuable to “waste” on something like a game.

The good outweighs the bad here, because limiting spring practice is good for players, who actually get a little bit of free time in the spring and summer. (Though not nearly as much as you’d think.) But I’ll always miss the free-wheeling spring games of the old days.

Speaking of A-Day, I’ll be updating this here blog regularly during the game and immediately after, so be sure to check it out. Also, we’ll have all kinds of coverage on www.oanow.com, including multiple stories from me and at least one from my colleague Tom Peavy. So check the site early and often, and enjoy.

But enough about that for now. I’ve got a few other things to get to.

I wrote a story about Brandon Cox for Saturday’s paper. I’ve been watching Brandon practice for a long time...three-and-a-half years now, since I arrived on the Auburn beat in 2004. And this spring, he’s looked like a totally different person. I watched him throw in a 7-on-7 drill against AU’s first-team defensive backs and linebackers today, and I was amazed at how sharp he looked. I don’t think I saw him throw a single incompletion, and every pass was right on the money. It’s pretty clear that his injuries in 2006 were more severe than anyone really suspected. They obviously hurt his play. But if he can stay as healthy as he is right now, he could have a huge senior year, which is exactly what Auburn needed.

In other news, I just got back from the Auburn-Alabama gymnastics meet at Beard-Eaves. I hope I’m not ruining the suspense when I tell you Bama won. It’s the 91st win in a row for the GymTide against the Tigers. (Note: I have no idea if Alabama calls itself the GymTide. Probably not. But I always thought “GymDawgs” was a cool nickname for Georgia, and I think it should catch on elsewhere.)

Auburn had a scary moment before the meet even started, when freshman walk-on Carmen Nelms was warming up on vault. She landed strangely and seriously injured her ankle; she’s reportedly undergoing surgery on the ankle tonight or tomorrow. She was in pretty serious pain, and it clearly had the rest of the team shaken up. Her absence also left AU seriously shorthanded: Four other gymnasts were already out with injuries or illness. So head coach Jeff Thompson had to rework his lineup a little bit, going with just five vaulters and putting sophomore Aimee Goheen in on beam.

Goheen held up her end of the bargain: She nailed a career-high 9.775 on her turn on beam. Not bad, considering she hadn’t even competed on beam since 2005.

But Alabama was just too good. And as gymnastics coaches never tire of repeating, it’s not like you can play defense. The Tide hit almost all of its routines tonight, which is tough to beat.

Whew. I’ve written more about gymnastics in the last two days than in the rest of my life combined. Moving on.

Quentin Groves wanted me to take a minute to make a public-service announcement on his behalf: The “Quentin Groves” on myspace.com isn’t him. Apparently, someone’s just posing as him. I guess that’s the price of fame. But Quentin’s not thrilled about it...apparently he had a pretty angry exchange with the guy, who refused to back down. So, enjoy your myspace.com fame, not-Quentin guy. It’s just sad, really.

All right...this post took about 20 minutes, which is probably about 18 minutes too long. I’m calling it a night...I’ve got to make sure I’m fresh and rested and ready to blog up a storm for you guys tomorrow.