Guerry Clegg: Auburn embraces high expectations
AUBURN, Ala. -- It might be unprecedented that a team replacing its starting quarterback, leading rusher and All-America center, and riding a four-game losing streak against big-boy competition is picked to win the best conference in college football and contend for the national championship.
Yet, that is the curious reality of the Auburn Tigers, 2015 model. The expectations stem from three bottom-line beliefs: that Gus Malzahn's offense will score points, that quarterback Jeremy Johnson is the real deal, and that the defense has to improve simply with the addition of coordinator Will Muschamp.
Perhaps all of that is true. But if the Tigers are to return to playing at a championship level this season, the reasons will have to be much deeper than that.
Winning in college football isn't as simple as drawing up schemes on both sides of the ball. That's especially true when a team resides in the toughest division in college football and plays two other Top 25 teams, Georgia and Louisville.
Malzahn exudes confidence in everything he does. But he realizes championships are the result of a daily commitment.
"This is a new team," Malzahn said. "We went through spring with our older guys, but this is the first time we've had our younger guys and our older guys and all the dynamics that go with that. We didn't finish, obviously, like we wanted to. I think our older guys have a little edge to them to redeem themselves."
The quest for redemption is nearly eight months in the making. It began the day after that 34-31 loss to Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl. It entered a new phase last week when the Tigers opened preseason practice. Malzahn talked, to both the team and to the media, about creating a "standard of excellence." He defined that standard thusly:
"It's great effort. It's great body language. It's great execution. It's great attention to detail. It's great attention to detail in meetings. It's being there for the guy beside you. It's more how to practice. What our expectations are, and then you can get to the X's and O's and all the scheming and all that. But you've got to learn to be one on both sides of the football and to play with great energy and attention to detail."
Alabama coach Nick Saban famously calls it "the process," but Saban doesn't have a trademark on the idea or copyright on the term. It's a mindset that leads to a habit that leads to treating every single repetition in the weight room or conditioning drills or meeting or film session or on the practice field as that one repetition that might mean the difference between winning and losing.
It's also about focusing on those mundane daily activities and blocking out distractions, even positive distractions such as preseason hype.
"Personally, I don't really listen to that," said receiver Marcus Davis, a junior and a member of Malzahn's first recruiting class just two short years ago. "But I know we have a chance. Coach Malzahn always talks about having a chance to win it, so that's what we're going to focus on, just getting better each and every day trying to reach that goal."
Coaches talk about immeasurable qualities and call it chemistry, for lack of a better word. There are 115 players on the Auburn roster, including walk-ons. Granted, some of those guys will never play. They're on the roster for practice depth. But that's still 115 personalities divided into two groups -- offense and defense -- and subdivided into several position groups.
The challenge is to meld all of these personalities into one. Fifty-two of these players are freshmen -- 35 true freshmen and 17 redshirts. Add in some of the returning walk-ons and roughly half of the players on the roster have never played a single play of major college football. Some of those freshmen are going to have to be ready to play.
"We're recruiting a lot of guys who can come in and play immediately," Malzahn said. "We had some success with some true freshmen in 2013. I think this class will have some guys that will have a chance to do that. We've got a very mature team. We've got a team that welcomes their teammates and they're pulling for them. They want them to do well because they know they can help us win."
Just two years ago, Davis was one of those lost freshmen. Now he's one of those veteran leaders. He remembers what it's like.
"Yeah, that's why I kind of took Ryan Davis and Darius Slayton under my wing because I know a million things are going through their heads," Davis said. "I just tell them to relax and just embrace it."
That doesn't mean freshmen aren't reminded of their place, from time to time.
"Oh, we still terrorize them," said offensive tackle Avery Young. He laughed.
"No, nothing serious, though. We reach out to them. We're like a family. We make them feel comfortable."
The motivation doesn't come from trying to live up to external expectations. Rather, it comes from something much more basic. As Malzaln put it:
"Eight and five is enough to motivate our guys."
-- Guerry Clegg is an independent correspondent. You can write to him at sports@ledger-enquirer.com.
This story was originally published August 8, 2015 at 7:40 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: Auburn embraces high expectations ."