The defending national champions have taken the field for spring practice, giving beat writers, wire services and the like their first opportunity to look over the initial depth chart and think, "Wow, who are these guys?" All but the most hardcore Auburn fans will probably be with them this fall for the first month of the regular season, at least.
At this point, the 2011 edition promises to be unrecognizable from its celebrated predecessor, in terms of quality and quantity: The Tigers are bidding adieu not only their shooting stars on both sides of the ball, surprise All-Americans Cam Newton and Nick Fairley, but also lost more starters from the entire lineup than any other team in America. When Auburn took the field Wednesday, it was without last year's leading passer, leading rusher, two of the top four receivers, four starting offensive linemen, the top two pass rushers and six of the top seven tacklers — in other words, one returning starter apiece for the entire offensive line (Brandon Mosley), defensive line (Nosa Eguae), linebackers (Daren Bates) and secondary (Neiko Thorpe).
That's an unprecedented exodus for a championship team in the BCS era. The best analogy is worth repeating: In broader sports terms, the Tigers the college football equivalent of the 1997 Florida Marlins. One and done.
Of course, there's another, more relevant comparison: The Auburn Tigers, circa 2009. If the current rebuilding job comes under wildly different circumstances than the rebuilding job Gene Chizik and Gus Malzahn inherited from the smoldering ruins of Tommy Tuberville's final season as head coach two years ago — the '09 team returned more starters from 2008 (13, compared to the six in camp from last year's championship run), and had just finished the season among the bottom 20 nationally in total offense, scoring offense, pass efficiency and turnover margin, a far cry from last year's top-20 finish on all counts — the circumstances for moving forward were very much the same.
That was especially the case for the offense, which (while more experienced) was in a much greater state of disarray after the 2008 collapse, and arguably much worse off at the most important position. The "returning starter" at quarterback, Chris Todd, had actually been benched for the last five games of '08, a casualty of Tuberville's decision to pull the plug on his experiment with the spread offense and tell its architect, offensive coordinator Tony Franklin, to hit the bricks at midseason. As far as SEC quarterbacks go, Todd also had almost no discernible talent. Nor any reliable targets at wide receiver. Nor, with the abandonment of the spread and subsequent chaos, anywhere to hang his hat scheme-wise. At best, he was a blank slate.
But with Malzahn pushing the buttons, he rarely looked like a liability as a senior. Auburn finished in the top 20 nationally in rushing, total and scoring offense, improving on '08 by almost 130 yards and two touchdowns per game for the season. Those numbers declined in SEC games (as always, playing Louisiana Tech, Ball State and Furman can do wonders for a box score), but overall still represented an undeniably radical turnaround with largely the same players. Of the Tigers' five losses in 2009, the defense allowed at least 31 points in three of them, and the eventual BCS champion had to drive the length of the field for a game-winning touchdown in the dying seconds of another.
The job this time calls for largely different players, but all of the above still applies just as well to the two quarterbacks vying to replace (that should probably be "replace") Cam Newton this spring, Barrett Trotter and Clint Moseley, neither of whom was particularly highly recruited, possesses particularly noteworthy size or speed, or has taken a particularly relevant snap in an actual college game. (Trotter attempted nine passes last year in mop-up duty, which I submit is a more promising resum� than having been nailed to the bench midway through the previous season.) Ultimately, their success is going to depend on their goals and expectations, and whether they fall within any reasonable bounds for a unit effectively starting over from scratch, opposite an equally unripe defense that wasn't all that great as it was. If the prevailing standard is the Heisman Trophy winner, the No. 1 offense in the SEC and a conference championship, well, good luck with that.
But if it's a competent, balanced effort that puts the team in a position to plausibly crack nine or ten wins, Malzahn's track record offers a glimmer of hope. With a first-rate backfield duo (Michael Dyer and Onterrio McCaleb) at its disposal, and barring an utter collapse by the rebuilt line — the line being the obvious X-factor, and not in the "high upside" sense that Newton brought to the table as the big question mark in 2010 — this can still be an offense that tops 30 points and 400 yards per game. It will be up to the emaciated defense to make up the difference, but that's good enough to remain relevant.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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