Auburn had a physical practice today at the intramural fields, but not physical enough according to Coaches Dunn & Price (we'll get to that in a minute). Brandon Cox looked very good today. Cox was 13 of 19 with 188 yards, 3 TDs and 1 interception. The interception came after a pass bounced out of Prechae Rodriguez's hands in the endzone and into Will Herring's. Tre Smith sat out again, as did Brad Lester. Devin Aromashodu had another great scrimmage as did Cooper Wallace. Anthony Mix ran brilliantly after the catch, but gave everyone a scare when he and David Irons had a vicious collision. Both were transported to the hospital. Irons has bruised ribs and should return in a few days. It was feared that Mix may have injured his spleen, but he received a good report from the doctors and is expected back in a few days. John Vaughn kicked a 51 yard field goal just 2 days after nailing a 45 yarder on a 10 second drill that kept the team from running sprints. Merrill Johnson went down early with a dislocated elbow. This allowed Tray Blackmon more playing time. Blackmon finished the day as the leading tackler, with 5.
After the scrimmage Dunn and Price held the defensive line for conditioning drills. This included what seemed like endless sprints in full pads. The first casualty was, freshman, Rudy Odom. Odom appeared to be having a heat stroke, but that didn't stop Dunn from lighting his tail up. Dunn made Odom, who was slouched over a cooler and being attended to by managers, stand during the drills. Odom promptly fell back to the cooler as soon as Dunn turned his back. After six sprints, Josh Thompson was heard muttering, "WHAT THE F&C#!". Dickens went down after the seventh. Josh, T.J. and Pat Sims walked the eighth. I believe Pat was saving up for the final sprint. Derozan was so tired and hot he almost passed out. He stumbled into Josh Thompson at one point. The 30 minutes of drills was very intense and was the highlight of the entire practice. Dunn was interviewed by AU Tigers immediately after the sprints and, in the heat of the moment, probably ran his mouth a little more than he should have.
