Tigers Take The Field On Saturday

by Jay Coulter on Aug 1, 2008 4:00 AM CDT in Football

The sun's a little brighter and the grass is a lot greener today. The long wait is finally over. Fall practice begins in the morning. For those of you living around Auburn and want to drop in, practice starts at 9:45 a.m. CT at the intramural fields. Even in shorts and helmets, practice is fun to watch.

Everyone will be watching the quarterback battle, but for sheer entertainment, step over and watch the offensive line practice. Hugh Nall is intense and even in shorts, those guys get after it.

Fan Day follows practice on Saturday and will begin at 3 p.m. CT and last for two hours. It will again be held in the Coliseum. If you're not fond of lines, I'd suggest staying at home. I stood in line with my daughter for three hours last year so she could have her picture made with Brandon Cox. The entire experience was painful. You've been warned.

Can the basketball situation at Auburn get any worse? The short answer is yes. Jeff Lebo's top returning offensive player, Josh Dollard has been kicked off the team for violating Auburn Athletic Department policy.

"Auburn has supplied Josh with all the resources for him to be successful," Lebo said in a prepared statement. "Josh understood his requirements and responsibilities to be an Auburn student-athlete, and he has fallen short in fulfilling what was clearly communicated to him."

You may remember that Dollard took a leave of absence last season because of "medical reasons." Two years ago, as a sophomore, he was Auburn's leading scorer and rebounder. He was expected to carry the load this year for Lebo.

How's this for a stat: Dollard becomes the 14^th scholarship player to leave the team since Lebo was hired. Unbelievable. It's hard not to be pessimistic at this point about the overall state of the program. Once again, Lebo will be short-armed when his team takes the court later this year. It will take a miracle for Lebo to be standing courtside when the new arena opens.

I came across the best article yet on Auburn's new spread offense. Atlanta Journal-Constitution college football writer Tony Barnhart sat down with offensive coordinator Tony Franklin earlier this week in Auburn to learn about the new offense. It's a good read.

Yesterday's "Who Do You Hate The Most?" brought a lot of comments from our readers. While Alabama was the obvious first choice, it was interesting to see the rest of your top 10. Somebody suggested that we rank the coaches we hate most. That's an excellent idea. Many times our hate is not so much directed at an institution as it is the school's coach. There's no doubt that ten year's ago, Florida would have topped my list, primarily because of the Ole Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier. We'll revisit this next week.