Posts Tagged ‘Chizik Malzahn Roof Luper Taylor’
(Photo credit: Todd Van Emst)
It’s always fun getting a chance to catch up with Auburn’s recruiting czar Curtis Luper.
Namely because there might not be a person in Lee County with more knowledge/opinions about the NBA than Luper.
I like that, considering I’m a diehard Cleveland Cavaliers fan and follow the Association with passion. I don’t like that Luper thinks the Lakers will repeat this season because he said that last year and, well, he was right.
I talked with Luper on the record for about 15 minutes this afternoon with the heavy focus on Auburn’s upcoming recruiting ventures, including the returns of Tiger Prowl and Big Cat Weekend. Here’s a sneak peek of the Q&A, which will run in tomorrow’s Opelika-Auburn News.
(Why do Big Cat again?)
“Coach Chiz wants to make those events annual so if it warrants it being an annual event, we think it did so we’re going to do it again.“
Auburn vs. Northwestern in the 2010 Outback Bowl
By now you already know that Auburn accepted a bid to play in Tampa on New Year’s Day in the 2010 Outback Bowl. Auburn will be going bowling again after missing last season’s festivities with its 5-7 record. Starting the season 5-0had most Auburn fans flying high. However, they were quickly brought back to earth finishing the season 2-5 and leading most fans to believe that there were definitely positives and negatives for Coach Gene Chizik’s first season. The combination of fan support and a strong showing in the Alabama game helped to convince Outback Bowl officials that Auburn was the 7-5 team they wanted.
Auburn’s opponent will be the 8-4 Northwestern Wildcats. The Wildcats come into the game riding a 3 game winning streak including wins over some pretty impressive opponents (Iowa and Wisconsin). In case you don’t know who or what Northwestern is, I present to you my cheat sheet to the Outback Bowl:
Lets put Neil in, he can't be any worse. Right?...Right?!?
By: Kevin Strickland
In the aftermath of another abysmal, soul-wrecking performance, the now 5-3 Auburn Tigers are searching for silver linings in some very dark clouds.
Lets get this out of the way. There is almost nothing positive to take from the 31-10 thrashing delivered by LSU Saturday night. Search if you will, but there are no silver linings. There are no bronze linings. There are no linings of any color, only clouds. Menacing clouds.
If there’s any solace at all to be wrung from the shockingly bad display, it would be that career backup quarterback Neil Caudle came off the bench when the outcome was decided, played with enthusiasm and reckless abandon and made plays that neither starter Chris Todd or designated “wildcat” Kodi Burns have shown any recent capability of making.
Good Morning Football: Auburn vs. the Piggies
By: Kevin Strickland
Will tomorrow’s early morning start be a wake-up call for the resurgent Auburn Tigers or will the Arkansas Razorbacks hit the snooze button on another SEC season?
All signs point to a high noon (well high elevenish at least) wild SEC West shootout. When the dust clears in the streets of Fayetteville tomorrow afternoon, one gunslinger will put a sixth notch on his pistol while the other crumples to a fatal 0-3 league sprawl.
Auburn will dodge the Mallet bullets, and utilize the Gatling gun, Gus Malzahn-directed offensive arsenal of Chris Todd, Ben Tate, Onterrio McCalebb, Darvin Adams, Mario Fannin, Tommy Trott and Terrell Zachary to shoot down the hopes of the ‘Hogs.
If you listen really closely right now you can hear the squealing. “What about Arkansas’ offense,” it goes. “We don’t just have Mallett, Joe Adams, Greg Childs, Jarius Wright and Michael Smith. We can score too!”
Auburn and it's fans riding high at 5-0
By: Kevin Strickland
The Auburn Tigers knocked off the Tennessee Volunteers 26-22 on Saturday night in Knoxville, surviving a 16-point Volunteer fourth quarter. While the Tigers answered a number of nagging questions in Rocky Top, others persist.
First the good news.
Auburn is 5-0. With a game against Furman still to come, the Tigers are all but assured a bowl game, which at the beginning of the season was considered a reasonable goal for 2009. Given the current state of the SEC, expectations for an upper tier bowl are now not unreasonable.
Tiger head coach Gene Chizik notched his first road win as a head coach in one of the most hostile environments in the league and in the process extended Auburn’s winning streak over its longtime rival.
By: Kevin Strickland
The former champion lay battered and bruised on the canvas, belted to the ground by a faster opponent with a chip on his shoulder.
Months of conditioning and reconditioning, a complete change in attitude and approach led him precisely where he was the last time he’d battled this challenger — flat on his back.
In the stands, his family covered their eyes and screamed “Stop the fight!”
Not this time.
The former champion got to his feet and waded back in. More blows rained down.
The former champion took each shot, staggered but didn’t fall. Instead he taunted his opponent. “You ain’t so bad. You ain’t so bad. I ain’t even breathing hard.”
The champ took punch after punch, daring the opponent to knock him out.
When the challenger failed to bring him down, the ex champ went on the attack and felled his opponent with a barrage of shots to the head.
By: Kevin Strickland
Since Gene Chizik’s controversial hiring in December, Tiger fans have intently watched his progress, looking for signs that the malaise that plagued the program in the second half of 2008 will evaporate under his leadership.
We’ve seen him assemble a staff, meet with the media, recruit, make personnel decisions, deal with staff issues, handle disciplinary matters, and manage practices.
What we haven’t seen is how that will all translate to the field.
In five short days, Chizik will finally get the chance to show what his Auburn team can do where it counts. Everything he’s done since arriving in Auburn in December built toward this moment.
In the end, Chizik will be judged on how well his team performs, in terms of intangibles like effort and intensity, yes, but primarily on wins and losses.
Chizik and his newly assembled staff
By: AuburnChopper1
This weekend marks the fourth weekend, and possibly the most important of Gene Chizik’s young tenure as Auburn University’s Head Football Coach. It’s his first official visit weekend for recruits on campus. Listening to the talking heads on radio, television and in print, you just had to know that Coach Chizik would be a one year, or two year anomaly, and then Auburn would once again be moving on to supposedly newer, greener pastures. I mean, come on now, a Head Coach that had only managed a meager 5 and 19 record at Big Twelve juggernaut, Iowa State? Auburn’s fan base was split, and passionately debated the hire from a much maligned and scrutinized Athletic Director, Jay Jacobs, and his hiring process that had taken seemingly months, and not the few weeks that actually passed.
