NOTEBOOK: Tigers ahead of schedule after bye week

A short week of practice last week and a Friday and Saturday mostly off had No. 2 Auburn’s players practicing with some extra energy Sunday night.

Coach Gene Chizik noticed.

“I really felt like there was a lot of energy, a little bounce in their step,” Chizik said. “We wanted energy we wanted practice to be crisp. I thought they were really focused and I thought it was a good night.”

The Tigers practiced for 90 minutes in full pads at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Sunday, coming off their first bye week and heading into Iron Bowl preparations.

Chizik said the bye week has the team a little ahead of schedule in practice.

“It’s not like we’re inventing new things. Now, it’s about us,” Chizik said. “It’s about us executing things. It’s about us executing the same plays, executing better. The practice time is where we’ve been able to look back at some things we haven’t been as successful on as we would like and some things we have been good at.”

As it did last year, Auburn has the whole Iron Bowl week off school for the Thanksgiving
holidays.

“I think our guys know what to expect starting tonight, and with them not having school tomorrow knowing how we want to organize it, the mentality of them being able to come over here in the morning and watch film on their own,” Chizik said. “So we’re going to stay on basically the same schedule as we did last year, maybe tweak it a little bit.”

Staying put, part 3
For the third straight week, Auburn remained behind Oregon at No. 2 in the BCS standings, losing yet more ground to the Ducks this week.

Auburn (.9682) fell to .0082 points behind Oregon (.9784) after both teams were idle last week. The Tigers were .0066 points behind the Ducks last week and trailed them by .0027 the week before.

The Tigers remain the consensus No. 1 in the computer standings, but rank behind the Ducks in both the human elements — the USA Today coaches’ and Harris Interactive polls — of the formula.

Auburn is also ranked behind Oregon in the Associated Press poll.

Undefeated underdogs?
Despite its undefeated record and higher ranking in the polls, Auburn remains the underdog to travel to Bryant-Denny Stadium and beat No. 10 Alabama on Friday.

The Crimson Tide are anywhere from 3 to 4-point favorites to win the Iron Bowl, even though the spread has lessened since the beginning of the season.

Auburn has won six of seven all-time meetings between the teams in Tuscaloosa.

“Even though we’ve had a winning record this year, people still expect us to lose,” offensive guard Mike Berry said. “We still carry that as a chip on our shoulder.”

Audio torture
Wide receiver Darvin Adams said Auburn’s coaches have a way of trying to prepare the players for 101,821 fans this week, most of whom will be hostile.

“We have music in the indoor,” Adams said of the Tigers’ practice facility. “It’s just execute what you do in practice. We practice on silent counts and things like that. I think we’ll be ready.”

Adams said the music is always the coaches’ choice, and it’s not always bad.

“Sometimes it’s good,” Adams said. “But sometimes it’s just a whole bunch of noise and you don’t understand what it is.”

dmorrison@oanow.com | 737-2568