Auburn keeps offense ‘vanilla’ in spring game

Chip Lindsey was pleased with the way his new offense looked in the Auburn spring game at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Goals through Auburn football’s 15 spring practices included the first-year coordinator beginning to implement his system and for players to gain a better understanding of what they’d be doing come fall.

The Tigers accomplished those things, but it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy Lindsey, who’s been given complete creative control of the offense by Gus Malzahn.

“I thought we were pretty vanilla, not a lot of bells and whistles, not a lot of special plays or fire alarms,” Lindsey said recently. “We just wanted to line up and play and see if we can execute, and that was kind of the goal in spring; the defense did the same thing.”

Auburn passed the football more than it had in past A-Day scrimmages. At times, Jarrett Stidham, Malik Willis and their wide receivers showed flashes of the entertainment they could provide this fall. Still, with the game being televised on SEC Network, Lindsey begrudgingly reigned in his offensive ingenuity.

“Yeah, a little bit, sometimes. A little bit,” Lindsey said. “It’s fun to try to come up with some things. At the end of the day, I think each week we’ll try to have some wrinkles and things, but I really — my goal, and coach said it first, but it was the way I was thinking — I want to make sure we can run our base offense and get really good at that. I think Jarrett and Malik both in the A-Day game proved they could do that.”

Switzer: Bama just better than Big 12

Alabama nearly produced as many NFL draft picks this year as an entire Power 5 conference, and Barry Switzer has a simple theory about how that happened.

The Crimson Tide had one of the best draft classes ever in 2017 with 10 players selected overall. The Big 12, meanwhile, had 14 total selections between its 10 teams. On Sports Talk with Bo Mattingly, Switzer said he thinks it goes back to recruiting.

“They recruited them,” Switzer said of Alabama’s draftees. “They were talent that you recruited. (Big 12 programs) don’t get the talent that Alabama gets.”

Alabama has landed seven straight No. 1 recruiting classes.

Meanwhile, Texas and Oklahoma, the Big 12’s two traditional powerhouses, haven’t approached the same level of recruiting success.

The Longhorns have had just two top-10 recruiting classes since 2013. The Sooners have had one in that same time frame.

“Not saying that Alabama coaches aren’t good,” Switzer said. “Damn right, they’re good. But they get to coach good players. … You just don’t recruit the good players at schools in this Big 12 conference. The only schools that really do are Texas, and Texas is down, and Oklahoma. And they’ve been down a little bit.”

Fulmer likes where Vols are heading

This is the year for Tennessee football. Or maybe not. But the Volunteers are close. Really close. But not there yet. Maybe.

That’s been the tone for the Vols since Butch Jones took over the program in 2013.

There’s perpetual hope, enough to give fans the impression that Tennessee finally could eclipse the 10-win threshold and maybe win an SEC East title. Former Vols coach Phillip Fulmer joined the legions of hopefuls, telling The First Quarter on Knoxville’s WNML radio recently that, “We’re really close to getting there, and we haven’t quite gotten to where everybody wants. That’s including the coaches, the most. Nobody wants to do it more than the coaches and players do. I can sympathize.”

Indeed Fulmer can. He coached the Volunteers from 1992-2007, piecing together a brilliant 151-52-1 record, including an undefeated 13-0 season in 1998. Eight times he hit the 10-win mark.

Gamecocks to start fall camp early

South Carolina usually gives its players all of July to get ready for fall camp, which normally begins in the first few days of August.

Not this year. Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp announced that South Carolina will open camp July 27 according to Thestate.com.

New practice rules in the NCAA allow for South Carolina to begin practice a little bit earlier. And due to the extended preseason, the new rules eliminate two-adays and reduce live-contact practice.

South Carolina begins the season against N.C. State at a neutral site in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 2. The Gamecocks will face their first SEC test the following week at Missouri.

In Week 3, South Carolina will host its first conference game when the Kentucky comes to Columbia.

Kiffin was going to LSU before FAU

Lane Kiffin hinted at the possibility of potentially joining the LSU staff as the offensive coordinator. Then Ed Orgeron went out and confirmed it recently.

In speaking with Ross Dellenger of the Advocate, Orgeron said Kiffin was coming to Baton Rouge. But then he got a head coaching job.

“We were looking at Lane Kiffin. He was going to come. He got a head job,” Orgeron told Dellenger.

Kiffin took the Florida Atlantic job. He stayed on to coach the first game in the College Football Playoff but was replaced by Steve Sarkisian for the national title game, which Alabama lost. LSU brought in Pittsburgh offensive coordinator Matt Canada. The Panthers averaged 40.9 points per game, good for 10th in the country.

Orgeron and Kiffin worked together at USC and at Tennessee. Orgeron also took over for Kiffin at USC back in 2013.

Zaire may not be in Florida’s future

Notre Dame graduate transfer QB Malik Zaire’s reported timeline for when he’ll choose his next school could leave Florida out of the running.

According to Rival.com, Zaire is contemplating making his decision Friday, which is potentially bad news for Gators fans.

The Notre Dame spring commencement is Friday-May 21.

While it’s currently looking more unlikely, Florida would possibly need an exception or rule change from the SEC in order to land Zaire at all. This is because grad transfers OT Mason Halter and LB Anthony Harrell didn’t meet academic requirements, so now the Gators are banned from adding other grad transfers through 2019.

Zaire threw for 816 yards for the Fighting Irish.