BULLETIN: Your Late Tuesday Update (11/2/10)

Todd Van Emst/Auburn U.

Hey everyone. Let’s dive in.

• Josh Bynes, noted tackle analyzer, said tonight that he wasn’t impressed with the team’s overall tackling effort at Ole Miss. “I think we missed a lot of tackles last game — myself included. As a player sometimes we think of ourselves, especially me, when I get to a ballcarrier I’m only seeing I want to make the tackle. Sometimes we have that chance where we can turn it back into other teammates or something like that. That could’ve changed a lot of things in the game and we have to improve on that starting this week regardless of who we’re playing — because that’s going to matter coming into the next couple weeks after that.”
• You can see Bynes’ defining play above. He jumped over the line and stopped Jeremiah Masoli on a 4th-and-1 sneak. If you can believe this … the plan for that particular move was hatched well in advance. “It’s just like we already knew that’s what they were going to do, because that’s what we watched on film. Third-and-1, fourth-and-1, anything short like that, they did a quarterback sneak. And sure enough, we knew from the split, the linemen were really tight like this, so we knew the sneak was going to come. It was just a matter of timing it at the right time. I just got so happy as soon as the ball was snapped. I was already jumping across.”
• Ted Roof confirmed that linebacker Ladarius Owens is in Birmingham mourning the death of MSU defensive lineman Nick Bell, who died earlier today after a short battle with cancer. Owens and Bell were best friends. “Devastated,” Roof said. “That was his buddy. And he’s hurt.”
• Roof said Ole Miss eschewed most of its offense in favor of new stuff last weekend. Think the Rebels weren’t treating that like like the Super Bowl? “They pretty much scrapped the conventional offense that they’ve been running and went to a Wildcat game with other things off of it and we had to make some adjustments. Didn’t start off great but played good for the second and third quarter and part of the fourth and then didn’t finish well. And that’s something that we’ve been doing: finishing football games in the fourth quarter.”
• So I asked Lee Ziemba earlier today about Gus Malzahn’s behavior. When he’s meeting with reporters, Malzahn is remarkably calm. When he’s coaching on Saturdays, Malzahn looks like he’s about enter the ring against Randy Couture. “I guess I see both depending on really how much coffee he’s drank. How much gum he’s chewing. He takes his work very seriously. And he does a great job. He’s just focused. That’s all I can tell you. From August to January, the guy’s all football.”
• Malzahn didn’t deny it. “I drink too much coffee, there’s no doubt about that. I’m already high strung, that’s probably a bad combination. That’s probably what you’re talking about. Gum relaxes me somewhat.”
• So what about the placid nature he exhibits in interviews? “I’m pretty high strung, the whole deal. I’m still pretty worked up. Yeah.”
• How about these allegedly hot rumors that Malzahn might soon be coaching at Colorado … or any other school that jettisons its head coach during the next two months? “Somewhere down the line I’d like to (be a head coach). I’m in no hurry. I feel like a lot of people think I am. But like I’ve said before, we’ve got a good thing going here and I’d like to see it through.”
• Roof was asked about the decision to burn Ryan White’s redshirt season in the team’s ninth game. He wasn’t particularly repentant. “In a perfect world it would never happen. But for the benefit of everybody, we’d like to let guys kind of play when they’re ready and not when they have to. But that’s where we are and that’s where it is. And we all do what’s best for our football team. He’s certainly done that.”

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