PRACTICE NOTES: 8/5/10

Hey everyone. Here’s what’s happening.

• Ryan White, whom you may know as a cornerback, was playing quarterback tonight. Why? Auburn promised White a chance to play quarterback (his position at Lincoln High in Tallahassee) and Gene Chizik felt like that was the right thing to do. What’s next? Chizik said they’re leaving all options open.
• You might think Curtis Luper would be OK with the Tigers’ depth situation at tailback, but you’d be wrong. “Well, no, not really. We’d like to have about four good ones, but Eric Smith gives us some flexibility. There’s Mario, Onterio and Michael, and then Eric is always a safety blanket for us because he can do it all, so we’ll manage.”
• Trooper Taylor seemed to indicate that DeAngelo Benton’s finger/wrist/arm injury wasn’t that serious. “They’re not going to cancel the season. So I don’t know how long he’s going to be out, but he feels the pressure from me. You’ve got 10 fingers. How many do you need to catch a ball? Get ready to go. I don’t have time for the injuries. I have time to coach the guys that are in there.”
• Taylor seems optimistic about Phillip Pierre-Louis‘ situation: “For me, he’s really shown that he wants to be here and has done things right, because we set a standard and I didn’t know if he could live up to it when he first started. If you had asked me last year, could he live up to that standard, if I was a betting man, I would have lost, because I would have said no.”
• Taylor on Shaun Kitchens: “We’ve got us a fade guy now. We’ve got a guy when we get down on the goal line, we can go to and he can go up and get the thing. He is physical and he’s a guy that, fundamentally, he’s got a ways to go, but as far as eyes and hands and going up after the football, he has no fear.”
• Freshman DE Justin Delaine didn’t participate in drills Thursday. He was running on the side.
• Chizik seemed satisfied with how practice unfolded today: “It was pretty hot out there, but I thought they pushed through it really well. We’ve now put together two nice days of practice. We’re going to go into some shoulder pads and helmets tomorrow, transition into a little more contact. It’ll be a fun day for everybody — especially the young guys that we are looking at to help us.”
• Friday’s practice will begin at 7 p.m. CDT, which is two hours later than originally scheduled. It’s being done to help avoid the oppressive heat here in eastern Alabama. It was 100 degrees today.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE FORUMS