Auburn's Tuberville Talks About Tulane

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville held his weekly press conference on Tuesday and talked about the Tiger's huge win over second-ranked Florida and looked ahead to this weekend's match-up with Tulane. This is the first meeting between the two schools since 1955.

You history buffs might remember that Tulane was a part of the SEC until 1966. They remained an independent until 1996 when they joined Conference USA. Surprisingly, the Green Wave hold a 17-13-6 all-time record against the Tigers. This season they are 2-4 overall and 1-3 in conference play.

Here are some of Coach Tuberville's comments from Tuesday's press conference, courtesy of the Auburn Athletic Department...

Opening Statement...
"Last week was a good win not just for our football team but for our program and for the university. That was as much of a win by the fans and by the crowd as it was for our football team. It was much appreciated by our football team in how we were supported after such a poor showing the week before. It takes a lot of resilience to fight back as fans as well as football players and coaches, so we do appreciate all the efforts from our fans and hope we will get them back out this week to do the same thing.

"We started preparations today for Tulane and they are a team that has had, obviously, some problems over the last 16-17 months with hurricane Katrina. Chris Scelfo is a good friend of mine, the head coach at Tulane. We have talked several times about the problems that they have had and the things they have gone through without spring practice. It is very tough to have a summer workout program when most of the players are not on campus. They are just excited about being back and playing and competing, and I think they have done an excellent job with what they have had to work with - no home games over the last year. I think the coaching staff and the players there have done a great job. We have not played them since 1955. It's been a long time since Auburn and Tulane have played. It's kind of a renewed rivalry. I think we have played something around 35 times before that.

"We are looking forward to having a non-conference game after three conference games and it should be a pretty day for Homecoming. We have to get ready for another challenge. Our football team is not playing as well as we can play. We haven't done that all year long. We have competed and we challenged each other. We have struggled in some areas. We have some areas that we have to get better in over the next few weeks. We have good work ethic and our guys' attention and focus has been there every day. We just have had injuries and we have had to move people around, and we just haven't had the consistency on either side of the ball or kicking game. I think our kicking game has been the most productive over the last seven games, but we have to get everyone playing on the same page.

"Tulane brings in a defense that is very similar to ours. It will be a lot of carryover to what we have seen the last few weeks. They bring an offense is that is pretty much what we saw last week against Florida - one back, shotgun offense, no huddle, very quick place, throw the ball down the field and throw it a lot of times. They do a very good job. They have a quarterback who has a lot of numbers with a very good completion percentage. It will be a good challenge for our entire team. As we always do, we want to continue to work on what we feel is going to make us better each week.

"We are looking forward to Tulane coming here and having a homecoming with a lot of people coming back to Auburn. Hopefully it is not the first time in a while, but if it is, we will welcome them all back and hopefully have a good day."

On Joe Cope and Cole Bennett's status...
"Joe Cope has gotten a lot better. He got his brace off his leg, where they immobilized it, and he is starting to begin rehab, trying to get it stronger. I think that the earliest we would see Joe would be against Arkansas State, if he plays that week, we are going to have to see. He is going to have to practice first; he hasn't practiced in a while so he is not going to just show up for a game. Just talking with the doctors and our trainers, they are looking at Arkansas State at the earliest, and then we will take it from there. He is working hard and getting better everyday and really staying into it, going to meetings. On the sideline last Saturday, he was a very vocal leader for all of our team, not just our offense or offensive line. He is very much needed -- not that Jason Bosley isn't doing a good job -- but it is hard to lose a fifth-year senior who has done such a good job for us over the last few years.

Cole Bennett is really progressing; he is rehabbing. Again, he had a pin put in his ankle. They have all the gadgets trying to get the bone to heal and all of those things. Same prognosis for him would be, at the earliest, Arkansas State. We are going to take it slow and it will be up to him and the doctors, as it will be for both these guys on when they come back. They are both working hard, both want to come back. Cole obviously has an opportunity, if he wanted, to medically redshirt with his situation. He has not redshirted; he is a four year player, but we are going to leave that up to him and his family as we get closer to the end of the year. There is a possibility for both of them to come back, and we would sure love to have them back for the month of November."

On Carl Stewart...
"Carl Stewart did not practice today, he is just beat up. Hopefully he comes back and practices tomorrow. A couple of other guys: Tim Duckworth is hobbling around a little bit, but he has done the same thing all year long. There is not anybody real serious where they might possibly miss a game. Aairon Savage is beat up a little bit, but all of them will have an opportunity to play this week."

On Quentin Groves and the halftime talk...
"I think that talk was overrated. The thing about Quentin (Groves) is that he has a fast motor, he runs very fast, and it looked like a light came on a little bit on pass rushes, being able to find his speed and what he could do with it. He has done that before; he has had some flashes of brilliance over the last couple of years. That was his best showing of being able to play at that speed. I didn't think our defense, including Quentin, was having a lot of fun in the first half. It isn't a lot of fun when you are getting the ball run down your throat. It looked like they were more relaxed and playing a little bit more with feel instead of trying to be protective. They needed a game like that. That was three halves in a row that we didn't play good on defense and it was good to see them come out of their shells, especially Quentin.

On carrying energy into the Tulane game...
"We have had three big games in a row. South Carolina was an atmosphere on South Carolina's part, but our guys had to play hard. Arkansas was one of those games where nothing went right. We can't take anything from them. They are a good team that hit us in the mouth and we couldn't respond. Last week, at least we came back and responded because we got hit pretty good in the mouth in the first half. We have got to have some carryover, it doesn't make any difference who you play, you have got to go out and play with enthusiasm and a sense of urgency, and that's what we talk to our players about this week. Next week, we get back in the conference race and then we come back and play a non-conference team and then finish up with two conference games. We can't drop our guard, that was a good win for our program, but it doesn't count any more than the other ones. You have to come back. Everyone is going to be shooting at us, ranked as high as we were. Let's see if we can handle it a little better this time than we did the first time."

On the learning process of playing consistently...
"We have a lot of guys who have to learn to play consistently. You can't play with the fever pitch that we played with the other night the second half for every down. You have to find a happy medium in there where you can play up to your level. You might not have as much emotion involved in what you are doing, but you can play with more focus than what we have played with in a few games this year. That's what we are talking about with our guys, just going out and focusing. Just do your job and everybody do it together, play as a team. There have been several moments this year where we haven't played as a team; we kind of lost our focus. There hasn't been any finger pointing, but I think people have been leaning on other guys to do their job and kind of let their job spill over into theirs. We have got a lot of young guys playing on the team, so hopefully our leadership understands now, not just the coaches, but also the seniors on the team, that they have to also be vocal in all situations, not just in certain situations.

On Tray Blackmon's production points against Florida...
"We knew that he play hard. Sometimes production points came from positions where he was lined up where he wasn't supposed to be lined up. Those production points come from making plays and he will learn and even get better. As we saw in spring practice, he plays with such tenacity and tempo every down. There are no off plays for him. When he is out there someone is going to get hit or run over or run around. He is going to try and get to the football whether it is the right technique or the wrong technique. That is how you play defense, you have to have confidence in what you are doing, and that is what Tray has. He has confidence in his ability to get to the football. He has instincts. One other guy I coached like that was Ray Lewis; he had a lot of instincts for the ball. I am not comparing them as having similar ability or saying what's going to happen in the future. I am just saying that both of them are very defensive oriented. It would be hard for Tray to play offense, he doesn't have that type of mentality, he has a defensive mentality that just lines up and when the ball is snapped he is going to try to be somewhere around it when the whistle blows."

On the weather during Tuesday's practice...
"The bad weather was, I think, a welcome to our players, a little change of pace. It's been a long season. We have five more weeks to go in the regular season. Sometimes you need a change in atmosphere. Guys practiced good and practiced hard. We found out whether we could throw and catch a wet ball and hold on to it. We had a very physical practice. It was one that you don't know what you are going to get out of your players when you go out, and it wasn't raining very hard when we started, but by the end, we had one of those `Arkansas toad stranglers.' It was coming down pretty good, and our guys had a lot of fun. It wasn't a lot of fun for us older guys out there, but it was a change of pace and tempo and you probably need that sometimes. One of the better games that weplayed here, I forget which one it was a few years ago, it rained all week and we never even got outside. We had to go in our indoor complex, which is only half of a football field, and we all crowded in there like sardines and I think we just kept our focus so much during the week of trying to get things done we played a good football game at the end of the week. Sometimes you need something like that to change the atmosphere."