News of the day, 8/24

Hey everyone. Auburn has finished its Friday practice. I made a careful decision to miss the workout because, well, it ended up being less significant than advertised. Ninety minutes. Shorts and helmets. The focus was on special-teams stuff. No non-scrimmage scrimmage.


Auburn picked up its ninth commitment of the 2008 signing class today. TB Reggie Hunt, a 5-10 kid from Daphne, said he's planning to play for the Tigers. He had scholarship offers from a variety of schools. The finalists were Auburn and West Virginia.

I added my email to the blogs earlier this week. Since then, opinions and questions have flowed in. Most of them deal with three issues:

• Will Chris Slaughter play?
  Answer: Absolutely. I think he has Auburn's best set of hands. Well, Slaughter and Ben Tate are there together. Slaughter is behind, we've all read that 5,000,000 times in two weeks, but they're devise some method to give him a substantive role of some kind.
  
  
• Why don't the coaches some up with some Tim Tebow-type role for Kodi Burns?
  Answer: Coaches keep saying they won't do that. I believe them now. I didn't initially. Remember that Tebow graduated early from high school and went through spring drills in 2006. Burns didn't.
  
  
• Will Kodi Burns play this season?
  Blake Field is the backup. He'll take over if Cox suffers a minor injury. A stubbed toe. Shin splints. If Cox suffers a more serious physical setback, I fully expect to see Burns take over. That serves two functions: It gives Burns a chance to make rapid improvement. It also give coaches an alibi for a team-wide meltdown. If Cox was to go down with a major injury, Auburn is going to be compromised severely. Why burn that development time on Field when, at best, he'll be a one-year starter? Coaches can play Burns, marvel at his good plays, laugh about his bad ones and cite Cox's injury for the team's problems. Cox is the team's most important player. You know that. I know that. Without him, this thing could sink.
  

This doesn't count as Auburn hotness, but this was funny. Us beat writers received an email today from Kansas State's publicist, former Auburn SID apprentice Kenny Lannou, that noted KSU coach Ron Prince won't be available for phone interviews. He spends up to one hour per week to talk with out-of-town media. He's already looking at a full schedule. Here's the problem: None of the Auburn writers have scheduled interviews. So who's going to be on the horn during the out-of-town hour? The London Telegraph?