Spring Roundup

Auburn held its final practice of the spring Wednesday night and concluded with a scrimmage (60 + plays).

NOTES:

Quarterbacks

• Kodi Burns shined by starting by going 13/16 for around 200 yards; Burns' first incompletion came on his 12th pass attempt during which he was under heavy pressure from Sen'Derrick Marks.


• Kodi Burns was impressive on the ground with a number of 5+ yard runs and a handful of 10+ coming mostly from fake handoffs in the shotgun.


• Burns' struck WR James Swinton for a 11yd touchdown which was the first score of the scrimmage.


• Burns' third completion went to WR Montez Billings who subsequently turned the ball over by fumbling.


• Burns' longest pass of the day came on a 50 yard pass to WR Chris Slaughter.


• Throughout the scrimmage, Burns was on the field as a part of two touchdowns for the Tigers.

• Chris Todd finished the scrimmage with 10 completions on 18 attempts for a total of about 141 yards; Theoretically, Todd should have been 12/18 in that two well thrown balls were dropped by WR Terrell Zachery and Charles Olatunji.


• Todd's longest pass of the day came on a 10 yard strike to WR Rod Smith who went on to race 55 yards to the 6 yard line.


• Todd was at the helm for one touchdown and one fieldgoal for the Tigers.

• Neil Caudle had a less than stellar start bythrowing three straight incomplettions, one of which was intercepted by DB Zac Etheridge with a 19 yard return and another was nearly intercepted by DB Ryan Williams.


• A positive note on Caudle came with a well thrown ball to WR Terrell Zachery for a 52 yard touchdown.


• The only time during the entire scrimmage in which Auburn went under center occured with Caudle at quaterback. The formation vas very "Wing-T like" which was as surprising for me to see it as it probably is for you to hear it. The tigers proceded to run two running plays out of the formation for short gains on both.

Wide Receivers

• Chris Slaughter led receivers with the most receptions (5) and with his route running ability, it will be a necessity to get Slaughter on the field and the ball to him.


• Rod Smith had the most yards receiving (9o), one of which was a 25 yard reception with a skillfull run at the end of the play


• Chris Slaughter 5 (68yds)


• James Swinton 4 (36yds)


• Quindarius Carr 2 (41yds)


• Tommy Trott 2 (35yds)


• Rod Smith 2 (90yds)


• John Cubelic 2 (32yds)


• Terrell Zachery 2 (83yds)


• John Cubelic 2 (32yds)


• Vincent Cook 1 (9yds)


• Tristan Davis 1 (13yds)


• Brad Lester 1 (5yds)

Running Backs

• All but two of Auburns running plays came from the shotgun. With the majority of those being draw plays.


• RB Ben Tate showed that he is fast enough for the spread offense with a number of quick scampers. Tate can still pound the ball as indicated by a hard collision with DB Walter McFadden on his way to a touchdown run inside of the 10 yard line.


• The longest rush of the day came from a 69 yard touchdown scoring run from RD Tristan Davis. Davis showed signs of returning to form with some of the quickness that he diplayed in 2006 against Kentucky.


• Walk on RB Anthony Jemison may never be a big contributor for Auburn during his tenure, but the Sophomore showed alot of fight in refusing to go down on a collection of rushes.

OTHER NOTES:

• Wes Byrum connected on field goals of 53 and 39 yards, while missing one at a distance of 41 yards.


• Chris Todd was under center for the first series which went three and out with a 5 yard pass to Tommy Trott and two run plays out of the shotgun.


• The third series for Kodi Burns consisted of three straight run plays.


• Auburn lined up in the shotgun formation once inside the 10 yard line with Todd and again at the 2 yard line with Caudle. Both plays resulted in a tackle in the backfield and a loss of yards. It will be interesting to see the route that Auburn goes with in these type situations once the Fall comes around.


• LB Josh Bynes was in on a number of plays on defense and it was apparent from the few blitzes he was involved in that he will be a very special player one day.


• LB Chris Evans was involved in a number of big hits with the hardest coming against a run play from under center.


• DB Jerraud Powers and Michael McNeil were in on a few key pass breakups and continued their consistent play in pass covereage as they have for the majority of spring practice.


• The most intriguing play of the day occured with Kodi Burns in the shotgun with an empty backfield and QB DeRon Furr in the slot position. The two motioned, switched roles and Furr ran a QB draw behind a block delivered by Burns on DB Jerraud Powers.