SportsLine wire reports
April 23, 1999

Auburn, Ala. -- On a miserable, and blustery day at Jordan-Hare Stadium the Auburn offense looked about as beautiful as the weather.

On the 13th practice day of spring, Auburn struggled mightily on offense throughout the day.

After the scrimmage, Coach Tommy Tuberville attempted to mask nothing, saying, "That was an old-fashioned tail kicking. Any way you look at it, the defense came out to play, and as we all knew, they were much farther ahead of the offense."

The Auburn offense was its own worst enemy Saturday.

"Offensively we made way too many mistakes," Tuberville said.

"Starting from the huddle all the way to the line of scrimmage, to changing the play at the line, getting into the wrong play, throwing the ball, catching the ball. There weren't any bright spots offensively," he said.

AUBURN'S TROUBLE ON OFFENSE WAS compounded by an experienced and reckless group of defenders which simply took over the scrimmage.

The defensive units collected eight interceptions and matched the offense with three touchdowns.

Defensively, Tuberville was pleased with the performance on Saturday.

"Defensively, they played with excitement, enthusiasm, got lined up right and we did very little blitzing today and, still, probably scored more defensive touchdowns than offensive touchdowns," Tuberville said.

Coming into spring, Tuberville hoped to name a starting quarterback at the end of the 15 spring sessions. With Saturday's performances by quarterbacks Ben Leard and Jeff Klein, the picture still lies as cloudy as ever.

THE QUARTERBACKS WERE SACKED 12 times and threw eight interceptions on the day.

Missing from Saturday's scrimmage was quarterback Gabe Gross who was in Columbia, S.C., with the Auburn baseball team for its game against South Carolina.

On a day that saw the quarterbacks struggle, the running backs could not seem to find a rhythm either.

The rushing offense struggled, rushing for 61 yards on 74 attempts.

Demontray Carter led the way for the backs with 61 yards on 20 carries. While Michael Burks gained 38 yards on 23 carries.

AFTER THE PERFORMANCE BY HIS rushing attack, Tuberville said, "The offensive line didn't have Colin Sears, Kendall Simmons and the centers haven't gotten a whole lot of snaps because of injury, but you've got to do better than what we did today."

On the day, the offense totaled 380 yards on 134 plays. Most of those yards were accumulated in the passing game, 329 yards on 60 attempts.

Although the passing game was the most productive facet of the offense, Tuberville plainly stated, "We don't have a receiver."

As unsound as the Auburn offense looked Saturday, the defense stood tall and made its presence felt.

After the scrimmage, Tuberville said, "As bad as we were on offense, you can't take anything away from the defense. We have a chance to be pretty good."

CORNERBACKS ANTWOINE NOLAN AND Larry Casher each intercepted two passes on the day, with Casher going 24 yards for the touchdown.

The defense dominated the scrimmage from the start.

"It's hard to single out anyone (on defense) because it looked like all 11 of them were in on every tackle," Tuberville said.

What was not difficult to single out from the scrimmage was the pressure the defensive lineman, in the new four-man front, put on the quarterbacks.

Tuberville conceded that the offense could not run any long passes because of the constant pressure from the defense.

Redshirt freshman Derek Magwood looked impressive collecting four sacks, while Marcus Washington and Josh Weldon ended the game with two sacks apiece.