We only got three players at the early interview sessions, so this will be a short update.
Follow the blog on Twitter and Facebook.
- Linebacker Jake Holland said the communication “wasn’t there” in the Utah State game. He said some of it was lost in translation. “Some people were calling different calls and some people were receiving different calls,” he said. “We weren’t all on the same page, and obviously that can be devastating to a defense.”
- To make it easier for the youngsters this week, the Tigers are going to simplify the defensive playbook. “Just so we can get lined up and play,” Holland said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys out there and they can get wide eyed. I feel like if we can simplify it down, then a lot of good things will come out of that.”
- That was a problem last week. Holland said Utah State did so many things that Auburn was making defensive checks on every play. “The guys a little bit wide-eyed,” he said. “If we simplify down and just play defense and make plays it will work out.”
- Does Holland hear anything negative from fans around campus? “I try to stay off the message boards and all that and all the hype,” he said, “because I know that I have a job to do and I have to prepare to win and I just like to keep it simple that way.”
- Quarterback Barrett Trotter‘s reaction after watching film of the Utah State game: “There was lots of things, lots of corrections we made and hopefully we won’t make those mistakes again. … We’d have 10 guys doing the right thing and one guy not, and that’d mess up a play. We just got to get everyone on the same page.”
- Trotter looked calm out there. He said that wasn’t necessarily always the case. “I was nervous,” he said. “It took me a while to go to bed. When I woke up I was nervous. But once we got to Tiger Walk and once I went through Tiger Walk and got on the field and in the locker room, it was just football from then on out.”
- Auburn had success in the two-minute drill, which is has worked extensively this year. “It’s just a whole different mindset,” Trotter said. “You know, the two-minute drill where you know you’ve got to score, you can be a little more risky with the ball, because you have to be to win the game.”
- KR Tre Mason called the kick return he had for a touchdown “one of the greatest feelings I’ve had in my entire life.”
- What was the key? “The blocking up front,” Mason said. “Really, without that I can’t return anything. Without 10 other guys, I really can’t return anything.”
- Mason had a habit of returning kicks for touchdowns at Park Vista High in south Florida. One guy he never returned one against was current Auburn kicker Cody Parkey, who went to nearby Jupiter High. “They always went through the uprights on kickoffs,” Mason said.