AU FOOTBALL: Coaches want more from McNeil, Freeman
Coaches want the bull seeing red.
While ambiguous and sometimes puzzling, Gene Chizik’s player interview policy typically doesn’t exclude players who have impressed him with on-field accolades.
So when he was asked Monday if the opposite conclusion should be drawn regarding safety Mike McNeil and linebacker Eltoro Freeman — both of whom haven’t been made available after all 12 of Auburn’s spring practices to date — Chizik delivered a somewhat telling, but still-ambiguous response.
“I don’t know what you want to read into,” Chizik said. “I don’t know if you should or shouldn’t, but they both need to step it up.”
McNeil is coming off a lost season, the result of a broken leg he suffered last spring. Freeman is one year removed from an up-and-down debut season that had as many highlights as headaches.
Both, tentatively, appear penciled into starting roles heading into 2010, but both have been overshadowed by players who have little — if any — real experience at the position they’re hoping to occupy for the season opener.
McNeil’s problems appear to be stemming from what ruined his 2009 season.
When he broke his leg in Auburn’s first spring scrimmage last year, safeties coach Tommy Thigpen said he had never been happier for a broken leg, as he feared for the worst with something along the lines of a torn ACL or some other type of serious knee injury. At the time, Thigpen and Auburn’s coaches said they hoped to have McNeil back at some point early in the regular season, perhaps by the Tennessee game in October.
That projection, however, was overly optimistic. While coaches never ruled out McNeil’s return throughout the latter part of the season, it became apparent that the Tigers were moving on without him in 2009 and hoping for a complete recovery in 2010 — just in time to shore things up among a group that also includes Aairon Savage and Zac Etheridge, both of whom are returning from major injuries.
Twelve months later, McNeil, who finished second on the team in tackles in 2008, appears to be a step or two behind his counterparts, while walk-on Ikeem Means has emerged as a potential first-teamer.
“If you watch him in the beginning part of practice, he’s good,” Thigpen said. “As he keeps running and keeps running, it’s a fatigue thing more than anything else. So for him, he’s just got to learn how to push through it and get himself mentally tough.”
What McNeil has, though, is experience — a positive attribute defensive coordinator Ted Roof needed 8 seconds to settle on when asked earlier this spring what McNeil has done to stand out.
“You can see that he’s played a lot of football,” Roof said of McNeil, who started all 12 games at free safety in 2008.
Freeman doesn’t have much experience at the Division-I level, but he’s certainly flashed potential — even if it was just in one game last year against LSU.
Freeman was out of sync on defense throughout the first half of the season before stepping away from the program briefly to address personal issues. He returned one game later and played like an All-SEC linebacker against the Bengal Tigers, picking up 12 tackles, including a sack and two for a loss.
The end of his season was derailed by injuries and he barely played in the Outback Bowl because Auburn ran its nickel package from start to finish.
His teammates say they’ve seen a different Freeman this spring, one that’s focused less on not making mistakes and more on just playing football.
“Before, he was just thinking too much,” linebacker Craig Stevens said. “Now he’s calm out there, he’s kind of playing the way he wants to play now. I see a lot of improvement in him, and I think he’ll be good going into the season.”
Freeman spent all of 2009 as a weakside linebacker, but has been working at all the positions this spring, as Roof tries to figure out who are his best overall linebackers, not just the best at one certain position.
Rising sophomore Jonathan Evans has received plenty of praise from coaches, and he appears to be putting heat on Freeman for a starting position.
“Anytime there’s a transition, there are growing pains. (Evans) certainly went through those growing pains,” Roof said. “How he’s responded to those and the way he’s handled those, I’ve been pleased.
“There has got to be a sense of urgency from all of us. We’re in a race against the clock. We have to get better right now. He’s done a good job with that sense of urgency.”
agribble@oanow.com| 737-2561
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