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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 28, 2010

Gene Chizik

THE MODERATOR: If you could start off by just your thoughts on facing South Carolina in the championship game and we'll take some questions.
COACH CHIZIK: Obviously it's a very exciting time for our players and our fans, for the Auburn family, just being able to be blessed enough to play in this game and our players ought to be extremely excited.
As you know, it's going to be a great, great challenge for us. South Carolina is probably playing the best football they've played all year. Extremely, extremely talented, as we know, as we faced them the first time. It was very evident that's a great football team.
So they're much improved. It's going to be a huge, huge challenge for us. They're a whole football team from top to bottom. Offense, defense, special teams. Just very solid in what they do. Very well coached, as you would expect.
And, again, I think they're playing as good of football as they've played all year. So it's going to be a great challenge for us.
I will open it up for questions. As I've said before, as long as they pertain to Cameron Newton and anything that has to do with the previous 12 games and this particular game coming up and/or, again, I don't want to address any potential rumors and coaching issues out there that are flying around.
I would like to address only the things that have to do with this football game coming up Saturday. That is our focus. And with that I'll open it up to any questions.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Can you just talk about -- seems like both of these teams are playing better than when you met in late September. What about Auburn? Where do you think Auburn has maybe made the most improvements since the first time you played South Carolina?
COACH CHIZIK: Well, you know, I hope that special teams-wise we've continued to improve. That's the first thing that comes to my mind in games like these where you have two really good offenses, two really good defenses, where does the special teams come into play.
I hope we've made a lot of improvement there. The consistency of our football team right now was not there Saturday. And that's some concern. I felt like we should have been more consistent the way we played.
But I think overall, as a football team, I think everybody understands where they fit within our team. The team chemistry and things of that nature, which I think over a 12-game season has really developed in terms of a personality of our team.
And I think we play as a team. I don't think we play as good as we could or should all the time. And that's obviously something we've got to do better Saturday.
But as a whole, I think our team chemistry is really well. I think our guys have really understood what it takes to win, certainly with all situations being told.
And they've been able to pull out all of our games up to this point.

Q. As a follow-up, how do you explain the defense when you look at games like South Carolina/Clemson, Georgia/Alabama seems like such a disparity in your defensive play in the first half of these games and the second half of these games?
COACH CHIZIK: Coach Roof does a really nice job halftime making some good adjustments as to what we see the offense trying to do to attack us.
I think that's one part of it. The other part of it is simply just, like I said earlier, the consistency of what we're trying to do has not been there entirely on defense.
That's been something that I feel as you go back and you even look at the South Carolina game, last time we played them, there's some big plays in there where we busted a coverage or just some things that should not happen and the inconsistencies obviously can't happen in this game Saturday.
So I think a lot of times that's why you're seeing a tale of two halves, it's a combination of a guy being out of place here and there, and also our coaches doing a nice job of adjusting at halftime.

Q. I'm not sure how much you might have gotten to watch Alshon Jeffery since he played you guys the first time. But if you have, just what are your impressions of him as a wide receiver and as a game-breaking kind of player?
COACH CHIZIK: I don't think there's any question he's playing as confident football right now as anybody in America.
And rightly so. I think in our league games alone he's averaging over 100 yards, I think it's 115, 116 yards a game in receptions.
I think that obviously the quarterback and him are on the same page. Garcia has done a great job in terms of pass efficiency. Getting the ball down the field. Everybody knows how talented he is. He's a big, physical receiver.
I think earlier in the year everybody knew he was talented. But I think he got better. And the quarterback/whiteout combination has gotten better since the season started. I don't think there's any question with that.
You can just tell that the confidence is there. So he's playing wide open right now, as the rest of their offense is as well.
And he's doing a great job and they've got a lot of confidence in him as well. You can tell with the coaching staff. So tall order to try to stop this one.

Q. Do you feel like a game like the one you played on Friday gives you and your team more or less confidence going into the championship week?
COACH CHIZIK: I think our team is confident all the time. I don't think there's any question there's no lack of confidence in our football team from the first game we played. We just need to obviously execute better earlier in the game.
We can't start so slow, and that's on all sides of the football. And I just think that, again, it's not a confidence issue. It's an execution issue. And it's got to be something Saturday obviously to be able to beat a great team like we're getting ready to play we have to be executing obviously much better than we did the first half of the Alabama game.

Q. I noticed that Darvin Adams was kind of shaking his arm and it seemed like his arm was bothering him after the last punt Friday. Is he doing okay?
COACH CHIZIK: Again, he's doing fine. It's one of those deals where it's this time of the year where, not just Darvin, but a lot of our football team is nursing some bumps and bruises, and he's no exception to that right now.

Q. Have you been around a team like yours, plays with so much resolve, when you get down by two or three touchdowns, seems like nobody ever drops their head or panics; it's like we have some time left, let's keep playing? How do you explain that?
COACH CHIZIK: You know, sometimes you get the feel down there that they just have enough confidence in themselves and they have enough confidence in each other that no matter how the storm is playing out -- and we tell them every week there's storms you'll have to weather in every game.
Some storms obviously are worse than others. We told them that going into the Alabama game that there's going to be a storm in this game that could be pretty violent and we're going to have to weather that storm.
And they hear that and they understand that. And watching them down on the field, there isn't any panic. I think part of the reason is because we've had to do it so many times this year, which, again, I've said earlier in the year I prefer not to be in that position.
But when you get in that position, it's comforting to know that we do have the ability and the confidence to be able to come back and win a game.
So I've never quite been around any group of guys that has that resolve and the ability to do that week in, week out. I've never really seen it done this many times, to be honest with you, at least me personally. So it's really a neat thing to be around a group of guys that have the ability to do that. But again we prefer not to be in that position.

Q. No specifics about the coaching searches, but what is your policy during this week or during the season when other teams are interested in your assistants?
COACH CHIZIK: Again, I'm not going to address anything that doesn't have to do with this football game.

Q. Maybe this is off topic, but I hope it will be okay with you. You got about two million new Arkansas fans up here in Arkansas rooting for you guys because obviously they want the Hogs to get to the Sugar. I know you have to win the game for yourselves. But do you have any thoughts about the Arkansas players and fans all of a sudden rooting for you guys wearing blue and orange?
COACH CHIZIK: No. Our sole focus is what we have to do. We have an unbelievable challenge ahead of us, and that's all we're focused on.

Q. But do you find it ironic at all that a division rival would be pulling so hard for you?
COACH CHIZIK: I don't really have a whole lot of thought on that right now, to be honest with you.

Q. When you look across the field at a guy like Steve Spurrier, a coach who has led Florida to so much success for the championship game before; he leaves and comes back and starts from scratch and does it again, as a coach what do you think about that?
COACH CHIZIK: I think he's a tremendous football coach. There's no question, for all of the things that he's accomplished in his career.
He's one of the coaches that's going to be considered one of the great ones of all time. I don't think there's any question about that. He's won a lot of championships. He does a great job, and it's obviously the reason that South Carolina is in the position they're in right now.

Q. But specifically about being able to get there and then start over again and come back.
COACH CHIZIK: Yeah, that's a hard thing to be able to do it at two different schools, and I don't know what those challenges are really like, but it certainly says a great deal about him as a football coach. So, again, they've done a great job.

Q. You've talked a lot about the players handle it when you're down, and talked in general about how Ted Roof handles halftime adjustments. Do you have any kind of specific examples of what he does well in that locker room at halftime? Is it just the minor tweaks of game plan? Is it just getting the players focused? What is it?
COACH CHIZIK: I think the first thing you do at halftime, regardless of which side of the ball you're coaching on, you simplify everything and say: Okay, look, here's the ideas of what they're trying to do from a general look, from a 10,000-foot look, and then you zero in on here's what we're going to do with the situations that have hurt us.
And usually they're very minor; but, again, the devil's in the details. So if the details require that it's a six-inch movement this way or we're going to rotate the coverage a little bit different with this formation or we're going to pick up this blitz on offense with this guy instead of this guy, it's just -- there's just different degrees of how to adjust.
But usually it's a series of small things that make big differences. And that's what I've found over the years.

Q. Does he do that as well -- I guess as well as you do? As well as anybody you've been around?
COACH CHIZIK: I just know our coaching staff has done a really good job of that pretty much all year long at halftime, yes.

Q. Could you talk about the dynamic of playing the same team twice in the season? Have you done it before?
COACH CHIZIK: I have. We did it in 2004. And it's a little bit of a different dynamic, simply because you can really look -- when you haven't played anybody before, you have your best estimated guess of what you think is going to be their idea on how to attack you, but it's only an educated guess. This is a little different because you can really go back and you can say, look, what was their ideas and out of their ideas what are they going to look at and say that was a good idea, that wasn't a good idea and how are they going to adjust it from there.
So you're not going to have wholehearted changes anywhere on your team because obviously you've been doing something good enough to get you to the place that you want to be at, or to get to the championship game.
So, anyway, I think it's a little different because you can really look back and you can narrow down the little subtle differences that you would do based on what was good for you, what wasn't good for you, and then you have your best educated guess on what they will do based on what they were successful at and what they weren't.

Q. Do you think, from a standpoint of players, that when you play somebody you've already beaten once, does it have any kind of impact on the way they approach the game?
COACH CHIZIK: You know, Phillip, I'm hoping it doesn't. I mean, this is a brand new team. That was eight weeks or so ago, eight or nine weeks ago.
Our focus has to be on -- it's really like every week. Our focus needs to be on ourselves and what we're not doing well and what we can improve on.
Obviously we'll look at them and we'll look at their personnel and see where we match up best and where we didn't match up very good. But the players, you know, our idea here is to make sure that our players are starting from scratch and understanding that whatever team they faced X amount of weeks ago is a much different team two months or two months plus later.
And I know that's the case because South Carolina is a much improved team since then.

Q. Just talk about the play of Eltoro Freeman on Friday and what kind of boost does he give you going into the championship game, being a physical linebacker against a team like South Carolina?
COACH CHIZIK: I think Toro did some nice things in the game, Jason. I don't think there's any question for that's the first game in a long time he's started and played for a good amount of the game. I think he did some nice things. There's no question about that. But he, like the rest of the football team, there's a lot of improvement from last week to this week. And couldn't be a better week to improve.
He needs to do that. I think he needs to focus in on the details of what we're trying to do defensively, and needs to tackle better. And so, again, like the rest of our team, he's got some significant room for improvement.

Q. How about is everything okay, if Ontario people ask me about him, it looked like he limped off the field at the end of the game?
COACH CHIZIK: It's really the same thing I've said before. It's just the time of the year. And when you end up playing Georgia and Alabama back to back, you're going to be beat up and have the normal bumps and bruises just like everybody this time of year does. And he falls into that category, but he's fine.

Q. You mentioned that South Carolina is a much improved team than when you played them earlier in the season. What are some of the biggest improvements you've seen in the Gamecocks?
COACH CHIZIK: I don't think there's any question they're running the ball extremely physical right now. Not that they weren't before. But you can tell much more confident in terms of them coming off the ball. Very physical along the offensive line.
Not that they weren't before. But you can just tell when you've made improvements. Obviously Marcus Lattimore has done a great job in their running game. And I think in league games alone he's averaging -- he's No. 2 in the league in scoring. And he's averaging about 115 yards a game.
And I don't think there's any question that the tandem of their what -- I start with the tandem of Jeffrey and Garcia, then I work to the other receivers too and just the timing of them throwing the football and how well they're executing that part of it, and then defensively extremely -- we know they're extremely talented. They're obviously a very physical bunch, but they lead the league in sacks. They do a great job of scheming and being able to put pressure on the quarterback. And with almost 40 sacks for the year, which is incredible.
And they're playing great run defense. They've got a No. 1 run defense in the league. I just think overall, as a team top to bottom, I think they've improved drastically, and again they were a really good football team the last time we played them.
But even looking at them now I think they've made a lot of improvements.

Q. As a follow-up, Clemson managed to stop Lattimore quite a bit. He only had a few carries but that only opened up Jeffrey. What will you be able to do to stop both of them?
COACH CHIZIK: I don't know that you can completely stop both of them. I know you can make an attempt. Obviously that's everybody's goal. But that's a phenomenal 1-2 punch. If you load everybody up in the box and try to stop the running game, then obviously you're exposing yourself a little bit on the perimeter with their passing game. That's why I think you have to have a healthy mix of doing different things to be able to be good enough to slow down both. And that's still a very tall order.

Q. How do you prepare your team to play in a dome? Is there anything different that you try to do?
COACH CHIZIK: Not really. You know, one thing that we have, the luxury that we have is that pretty much every venue we play in on the road is extremely loud and you have to deal with all of the things that come with on-the-road games.
Even though the dome is obviously enclosed and the noise can be a factor, you really deal with that on the road pretty much week in, week out, here in this league anyway.
So we won't do anything different. We'll do all of our signals and all of our things that we do and how we prepare when we go play on the road. And really won't change anything.

Q. And one more question. Looking at the last time you played South Carolina, what would you like to improve upon this team, offensively and defensively?
COACH CHIZIK: Offensively, we'd definitely like to continue to try to run the football. We think that's huge. We'd like to open up the passing game a little bit more, try to get the ball down the field some more. And we need to play better pass defense. It's that simple. We need to put some pressure on the quarterback and play better pass defense than we did the last time we played.

Q. You knew you had a good quarterback, but you said you wanted to see him do it in the game. Early in the season were, was there a play or some plays that confirmed this guy is really going to be really good for us?
COACH CHIZIK: I don't think there's any question he did some things early in the year. I think in our first game, he broke a 60- or 70-yard run and really -- you're exactly right. That's what I said. I said, look, I think he's very talented. We've got to see what he does when the lights come on. Because we knew he had some -- we knew he had the ability to improvise when things weren't there.
We knew that there were some running game in there for him that we felt like he could be good at. But when he broke those early runs early in the year or the big runs earlier in the year, specifically in our first football game, you could really see him take off. And you said, wow, I think he's definitely got the ability to improvise.
And the ability to throw the football down the field when our running game was not what it needed to be. We did that some in the Clemson game. We did that some earlier in the year.
And I think just kind of slowly but surely we started to really identify the things we felt like he could be really good at. And I think we tried to capitalize on that and he did a good job of continuing to improve.

Q. Can you talk about his focus the last few weeks with all the eyes on him like they've been and how he's gone out and played the way he has because people just go how is this guy doing this with everything on him?
COACH CHIZIK: Cameron's done a really great job in the past, well, the past 12 games, obviously. But certainly we're very proud of him. He's maintained his focus just the way he did in every football game this year and was able to prepare every week the same way. So really proud of him for being able to do that.

Q. What did you think you guys were going to get out of Michael Dyer at the beginning of the season? What kind of talent did you think he had to shine like this?
COACH CHIZIK: Well, we felt like he was going to be a good running back. We definitely felt like he was a guy that would come in and contribute. He's extremely talented, as we know. But you never know how the tailbacks are going to respond, the young guys, simply because there's so many things other than running the football that they've got to do. We didn't know. We felt good -- we felt like he would get playing time. We felt like he would get better as the year Wednesday on.
And he really has done that. He's worked hard to get to that point. So didn't really have any preconceived number of plays that he would play or any of that. But we just felt like if he continued to improve he could be a big factor in our running game and he's done that.

Q. When teams start slanting their lines to try to take away Newton in the middle, how has that impacted Dyer, looks like he's an in-between-the-tackles guy. How does that impact where the offense goes with him?
A. When you slant and you do a lot of line movements up there, sometimes that can be feast or famine. We obviously look to see what everybody's ideas are to try to stop our inside run game.
I think Michael's done a good job of running the ball tackle to tackle. I wouldn't pin him into the locker of you're the in-between-tackles guy. I think he can run the ball inside and outside, certainly if we block it right.
He's done a good job when teams have tried to use some movement to stop our running game. I think he's done a good job of being able to be a downhill runner. That's whether there's movement or not movement going on in there. But he needs to be that guy for us that can definitely run in between the tackles from the tailback spot.

Q. The last time you played South Carolina, is there anything that stands out that Cam Newton did or maybe learned from that game?
COACH CHIZIK: Early in the game he broke a big run that was a pretty significant run earlier in the game down the sideline, that was a good run. But that was just kind of in the progression of the way he's evolved over the last 12 weeks.
That game was in the progression that we had hoped he would be or do. And it was a very good game for him in terms of running the football. So did we learn anything new? I don't know we learned anything new. We kind of just got a better idea at that point in the year of what he was going to be able to be efficient at. And I think he did that both running and throwing.

Q. From early in the year until now, how has defenses changed the way they try to defend basically your entire offense?
COACH CHIZIK: They've basically squeezed everything in there and really made it a point to make sure that our quarterback runs were going to be much more difficult to get out of there.
They've done that. There's no question about that. And that's, I think, everybody's idea going into the game is squeeze enough people in there and constrict lanes and squeeze enough to really be able to make it difficult for the quarterback to run the football.
I think that's everybody's idea going in when it comes to stopping the run game. And, again, that's what we're seeing from most teams.

Q. Do you do anything to prepare your guys for the big stage; that is, this game in particular, and what do you remember about the atmosphere of this game? A lot of coaches in the league have talked about how it's just a notch below the national title game. What about the atmosphere that makes it such a big deal?
COACH CHIZIK: Obviously playing in this game is a little different feel because everyone's watching. Unless you're in the championship game that day, everybody is watching you and it's a neat feeling. It's a little bit different. Everybody else is out recruiting right now and you're practicing. I think there's just a different feel for it.
Obviously when we get over to the game, the energy and excitement is going to be off the chart, which it should be. But the good thing for us is that in this league the environment that we're going to go into is just very similar to what we play in home or away just about every week.
So the environment itself, once we get to the dome, shouldn't be much different. But just the feeling of preparation the week before, and things of that nature, I think will be a little bit different of a feel.

Q. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about Philip Lutzenkirchen's development, not just as a blocker, but as a pass catcher at tight end?
COACH CHIZIK: I'm really proud of Philip. I really am. You gotta remember, when we recruited him, he was more of a receiving -- you could have called him a tight end, but he was in an offense at that point at that point in time where he was basically a wide receiver. He's had to learn to block and learn to do different things for us offensively other than catch the football. And I think he's really come a long way in that regard.
I think he's really, really proven to be exactly what we thought he would be catching the football. He's made some huge catches for us. We really feel good about getting him the football at different times in the game with different routes that we've got built in there for him. So I just think his game has improved tremendously since last year. And it's been good to watch him evolve, and he's been a big part of our offense.

Q. He's only got like I think it's 12 catches, but five of them have gone for touchdowns. Is that Philip or is that Gus's play calling?
COACH CHIZIK: Again, we have specific routes at specific times that we feel like he's going to be a factor in. And so it's a combination of both.
He's very reliable down in the red zone as we know, as well as some of our other guys, too. But he's very reliable down there, too.
We tried to, at that position that he plays, we've tried to move that position around different places. Sometimes he's in the back field. Sometimes he's at 3-point stance, hand-on-the-ground guy. But no matter where he is, being able to do some things where we can get him the football because he's got good hands and can catch it.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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