AUBURN, Ala. -- The least-heralded national title defense in recent memory begins today, bright and early, tucked away on ESPN2.
It’ll be in relative obscurity that No. 23 Auburn takes the field as the defending BCS national champion, playing Utah State at noon at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
The Tigers team that takes the field will bear little resemblance to the one that beat Oregon 22-19 nearly nine months ago, and therein lies the national skepticism.
Counting kickers, Auburn will have 19 new starters today and a roster flooded with freshmen and sophomores.
No wonder six- or seven-win predictions, if that, are the norm in 2011.
“Everybody’s dogging us. Everybody’s putting us down,” defensive end Corey Lemonier said. “I don’t feel no pressure. We just need to go out there and show them that we mean business.”
Auburn enters the season ranked 19th in the USA Today coaches’ poll and 23rd in the Associated Press poll. It’s the lowest a defending national champion has debuted in the polls the following season since Minnesota began 1961 unranked.
“We feel a little disrespected that coming off a national championship,” defensive end Dee Ford said. “They’re basically telling us that we’re not talented enough to play football. They’re forgetting the fact that we are football players. Yeah, they’re sleeping on us. So we’re just going to take that as motivation.”
The Tigers are young across the board. Only four of Auburn’s starters are seniors, a far cry from a BCS title game starting lineup that, including kickers, featured 15 seniors plus three juniors who would leave for the NFL a year early.
Of the 65 players listed on this year’s depth chart, 44 are sophomores or younger. Coach Gene Chizik estimated that 25 to 30 players will make their college debut today.
Although back-to-back consensus top-five recruiting classes have restocked Auburn’s roster, those players will have an adjustment period to go through.
“They have to buckle up,” offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn said. “They just have to get it done. We recruited those guys and we told them we were willing to play true freshmen, and those guys have to be ready.
“We’re going to throw them in there and see what happens. And we’ll stick with the ones that have the right attitude and handle the right situations and try to get better. They have to be ready.”
Auburn eases into the season against Utah State, which hasn’t made a bowl game in 14 years and has gone 4-8 in each of head coach Gary Andersen’s first two seasons.
Things toughen up quickly, though. Auburn hosts No. 20 Mississippi State the following week, the first of seven games against all of the SEC’s ranked teams.
Chizik doesn’t use the pressure to succeed in the dog-eat-dog SEC as motivation for his young team.
“There is always pressure when you are at a place like Auburn because the expectation of everybody is for you to win,” Chizik said. “That expectation is true from our equipment managers and trainers, student trainers, student managers, all the way up to me and our athletic director.
“So those expectations are there. It comes with the territory. The pressure is probably more internally from each guy individually and what he expects himself to do than anybody.”
Still, nobody knows what quite to expect from the new-look Tigers. That includes the coaches.
“It’s almost like Christmas,” wide receivers coach Trooper Taylor said. “You get to open up your presents to see how it’s going to turn out.
“I just my hope my bike doesn’t have a flat tire.”
E-Mail
Print
Read Joel Erickson's blog for all things Auburn
