Archive for the ‘Football’ Category

For the first couple of months after his horrific neck injury, Zac Etheridge couldn’t look anywhere but straight ahead.

His head stabilized by a bulky, two-piece neck brace, Etheridge needed to shift his entire body just to look left or right. To peer behind, he had to do a complete 180-degree turn — a surprisingly difficult maneuver for a player who, months earlier, was smashing into running backs who started a play on the opposite side of the field.

So Etheridge stared forward, focused first on recovering all the strength he lost from months of inactivity and then on the improbable comeback to the football field he expects to make in the fall.

MONTGOMERY—The Auburn Board of Trustees this morning approved the immediate construction of a $16.5 million, 92,000-square-foot indoor practice facility that will help the Auburn football team keep up with its SEC counterparts not only on the practice field, but on the recruiting trail as well.

The building’s main attraction is a 100-yard football field, something that has been desired for years. Auburn will become the seventh school in the SEC to acquire a full-sized, indoor practice facility, joining Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas, LSU and Kentucky.

The Auburn board of trustees will vote today on the athletic department’s proposal to build a new, multipurpose indoor practice facility.

If the proposal is passed, planning and construction will commence immediately.

Auburn would become the seventh team in the SEC to have a full-sized, 100-yard indoor practice facility. Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky and LSU are the others, while South Carolina and Tennessee have similar, undersized buildings like Auburn. Florida, Georgia and Vanderbilt do not have any type of indoor practice facility.

Zac Etheridge doesn’t want there to be any “gray area” when he gets a thorough inspection from his doctor next month, an appointment that will likely dictate whether or not he will be able to play football again.

Ever since he lost the halo around his head and neck, Etheridge has been rehabbing three to four hours per day. He does a number of those hours with the team, but a good chunk of it is done on his own, when he’s watching TV.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the seventh in a series previewing Auburn’s 2010 football opponents. This week: Arkansas (Oct. 16). The series will run weekly.

There has, perhaps, been an unfair amount of pressure heaped on this year’s version of the Arkansas Razorbacks, as national pundits and experts seek a potential threat in the SEC West for the defending national champions, Alabama.

Auburn, from firsthand experience last year, certainly won’t argue against the Hogs.

Aside from the Tigers’ meltdown in Baton Rouge, La., against LSU, there was no team that thoroughly outplayed and dissected Auburn more in 2009 than Arkansas.

Jabrian Niles: Auburn's new Defensive End

The process has been a bit more methodical this summer, but Auburn’s 2011 class of commitments is beginning to come together.

Mobile defensive end Jabrian Niles became the Tigers’ eighth commitment Tuesday, announcing to Auburn’s multiple scouting websites that he has ended his recruiting and will sign with the Tigers in February.

Niles, a 6-foot-2, 265-pounder, had offers from most of the Southeast’s top programs, including Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Florida and Florida State.

ESPN ranks Niles as a four-star recruit and the nation’s 19th best at his position. Rivals.com considers him a three-star and the 29th best.

The voters showed no love for the 2004 Tigers, electing Oklahoma to face eventual champ USC

Shortly after Auburn wrapped up its undefeated 2004 season with a Sugar Bowl victory over Virginia Tech, players and coaches received rings that had “National Champions” carved on the sides.

The meaning behind the inscription was only figurative, though many believed — and still do — that Auburn, not BCS champion Southern Cal, was the real national champion after its 13-0 run through the magical season.

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth in a series previewing Auburn’s 2010 football opponents. This week: Kentucky (Oct. 9). The series will run weekly.

From all indications, Joker Phillips has hit the ground running in his first season as the Kentucky head coach.

Now all he has to do, apparently, is distinguish himself from another hot new coach in the Bluegrass State, Louisville’s Charlie Strong.

“Charlie goes places in Kentucky, and they call him Joker,” Phillips joked with reporters at last week’s SEC meetings in Destin, Fla. “I go to some places that they call me Charlie.

Spanish Fort center Reese Dismukes

Three of Auburn’s current commitments and several of its targets are more famous today than they were yesterday. They’re official members of the new ESPN 150 rankings, which were released today for the first of many more times before Signing Day.

Auburn’s newest commitment, quarterback Kiehl Frazier (Springdale, Ark.), ranks the highest among Tiger commitments, coming in at No. 39. Among quarterbacks on the list, Frazier is ranked fourth.

Spanish Fort center Reese Dismukes (52) and Marietta guard Thomas O’Reilly (145) also represent Auburn—for now—on the list.

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth in a series previewing Auburn’s 2010 football opponents. This week: Louisiana-Monroe (Oct. 2). The series will run weekly.

On the surface, it will appear that Gene Chizik and new Louisiana-Monroe coach Todd Berry are worlds apart when their teams face off in a non-conference game at Jordan-Hare Stadium in October.

Chizik, of course, is the second-year leader of the back-on-the-map Tigers who are positioned to make a run at Alabama for the SEC West crown. Berry is, well, the coach at Louisiana-Monroe, an FBS, non-BCS qualifier that typically gets its only national exposure from its once- or twice-a-year, high-priced routs against SEC teams.