Thursday, March 15, 2007

Spring practice rundown

Spring practice is almost over—just three practices left, counting A-Day on Saturday. It’s amazing how fast those 15 practice days go by.

At the start of spring practice, I listed five questions AU needed to answer this spring. I’ll have the answers in Saturday’s paper, as part of our package advancing A-Day. As a reminder, here are the questions:

1. How does Brandon Cox look?

2. Who’s the No. 1 receiver?

3. How will the offensive line shake out?

4. Can the linebackers live up to expectations?

5. Are the young kickers ready?

If you’ve followed spring football, you know the answers to some of these questions. You also know that a couple of them remain unanswered, and might not be answered until the start of the 2007 season. (Seems like a long way away, huh?)

But there are a few other questions that either didn’t make the five-question cut or that have cropped up unexpectedly over the course of spring practice. I’ll try to answer a few of those today.

1. Who’s the backup quarterback?
There’s no answer to this question, at least not yet. Junior Blake Field, who’s been the backup the last two years, has been in and out of practice with shoulder tendonitis. Field and Auburn’s coaches have been vague about his timeline to full recovery. Meanwhile, Neil Caudle and Steven Ensminger have looked like freshmen this spring, even against AU’s second-team defense. They’ve got a long way to go to be consistent enough to be full-time SEC quarterbacks, as does Field.

Then there’s Kodi Burns. Every Auburn fan I’ve spoken to has high hopes for Burns, whose high-school career in Arkansas was nothing short of amazing. But playing as a true freshman at Auburn—especially at quarterback—isn’t easy. In the eight-year Tommy Tuberville era, only one true freshman quarterback has played in a game: Gabe Gross, back in 1999. And the only reason Gabe started was because the offensive cupboard was all but bare.

That’s not the case now. There’s always a chance that Burns will learn the playbook and adjust to the college game with unprecedented speed, or that AU’s coaches will draw up a few special formations for him to make an impact, a la Tim Tebow at Florida. But history’s not on his side.

2. Will Greg Smith ever make an impact?
The jury’s still out, but I’ll say this: It’s not looking good. Greg is in better shape than he was when he arrived on campus, but to be honest, that’s not saying a whole lot. He’s a big, heavy guy, and all the working out in the world probably isn’t going to change that.

The coaches haven’t given up on him, not by a long shot. But it’s tough to look at the depth chart at the interior line spots and not wonder if Greg is running out of time. He’s already behind a lot of players his age or younger: Sen’Derrick Marks, Pat Sims, Jake Ricks and Mike Blanc. He’s also behind seniors Josh Thompson and Tez Doolittle. That’s a lot of ground he has to make up, especially since Auburn doesn’t usually play more than five or six d-tackles and noseguards in the course of a season.

Of course, as Don Dunn pointed out, that’s good for Auburn. Somebody’s gotta be last, and at the moment, Greg is last because all those guys are playing really well. So that’s a positive.

3. How good is Tristan Davis?
As anyone who’s ever heard me on the radio can attest, I’m a big believer in Tristan. (Though not as big a believer as my colleague Jay G. Tate of the Montgomery Advertiser. I think Jay secretly believes Tristan’s tears could cure cancer...if he ever wept.)

Tristan’s had a turbulent AU career, switching from defense to offense to defense and back. A year ago, after he impressed in limited opportunities at tailback against Kentucky and Ball State, Auburn’s coaches were privately telling anyone who would listen that he didn’t “have the hips” to be a running back, and that his true future was at safety.

So much for that...he could barely crack the playing rotation in the defensive backfield last season, and now he’s back at tailback. But with all Auburn’s running back talent, how much can he possibly play? One thing he’s been called upon to do this spring is prove he can run physically between the tackles and make people miss, rather than outrunning them. To my untrained eye, it looks like he’s had some success doing it. But AU has an awful lot of good tailbacks: Brad Lester, Mario Fannin, Ben Tate and Carl Stewart, plus incoming freshman Enrique Davis. It’ll be interesting to see just how Tristan fits into that depth chart. We’ll see in September.

That’s enough for now. I’ll add another installment tomorrow. If you can think of any other questions you’d like answered, drop me an e-mail or a comment. Thanks!