Tigers' Kodi Burns makes impressive debut, but ...
It is virtually impossible for a freshman football player to sneak up on the fans of any college team.
Fans know every new player's name, hometown, high school football stats, height, weight, speed in the 40, favorite color, name of his girlfriend and his dog.
So when a freshman takes the field for his first collegiate scrimmage, he does so with expectations already on his back. If he has a good first scrimmage, most fans are not surprised. If he doesn't, fans are not too upset, at least not yet.
It happens because of the unbelievable growth of recruiting services that make superstars out of players who have never taken a snap in college. For instance, who didn't know the three big freshmen quarterbacks in the Southeastern Conference last season? Tim Tebow, Matthew Stafford and Mitch Mustain were campus heroes before they even pulled on a practice jersey at Florida, Georgia and Arkansas.
Sometimes the hype is right on the money. Tebow didn't disappoint. He was a valuable piece to Florida's puzzle that ultimately led to a national championship. Stafford improved game to game and by the end of the season he was an established winning quarterback. Only Mustain wound up a letdown and even he posted eight straight wins as a freshman starter before he lost his job and eventually transferred to Southern California.
There are times when the recruiting service hype is way overblown and the player never lives up to the expectations. Even though a player may have a decent career, he is considered a failure by the fans that put so much stock in what services tell them … for a price, of course. Sometimes those expectations are only realized on the practice field. There are players who become practice field legends, but are never able to pull off the same exploits in real games.
Either way a career unfolds, the player is never at fault for the expectations. It's really not a player's fault that somebody several years ago realized there was gold in the recruiting hills and started mining that goal and providing information to the recruiting fanatic who was more than willing to dole out the cash for "inside information" on every high school player in the country.
There appears to be a practice field legend in the making at Auburn.
After one scrimmage — that was, incidentally, closed to everybody but players and coaches — the word is already out that freshman quarterback Kodi Burns is that player.
Kodi Burns is well known to recruiting fanatics. When Auburn signed the 6-1, 191-pounder out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, it was a major recruiting coup for the Tigers. A five-star player, Auburn fans started comparing Kodi Burns to Tebow immediately. Word leaked out after Saturday's scrimmage about Kodi Burns' exploits, and now the fans are convinced the recruiting services are right on the money about Kodi Burns and the young quarterback will see plenty of action, much like Tebow did, at the very least.
Secretly, some believe at some point in the season Kodi Burns will take over as the No. 1 quarterback for the Tigers.
He might be that good, but hold on Tiger fans. Don't read too much into the results of one scrimmage, especially a scrimmage that you didn't see.
But there were witnessed to the scrimmage. There was coach Tommy Tuberville, who didn't seem at all surprised about what he saw in the first scrimmage.
"We saw exactly what we expected to out of Kodi," Tuberville said. "Nobody can tackle him."
And there were the players, many of who tried in vain to corral the exciting quarterback. The players were obviously impressed. Some even mentioned Kodi Burns and Tebow in the same sentence, which was music to the fans' ears.
Kodi Burns has a long way to go before he gets the chance to show what he can do in front of 80,000 people on a Saturday that counts. He'll have more fall scrimmages and the daily practices to show his stuff and to prove to the coaches that he deserves to be in the hunt for the No. 2 backup job. It's not like Neil Caudle, Blake Fields, Steve Ensminger or Jonathan Vickers are just going to step aside for the freshman, no matter how much hype accompanies him. Caudle, injured in the Saturday scrimmage, now looks to be a longshot for the backup job. According to Tuberville, the race for the No. 2 quarterback job is still wide open, but Kodi Burns is now definitely in the mix and has taken some major steps toward getting to the top of the list.
For Tuberville, though, this is a great kind of battle. When players compete for positions, it has a way of elevating the performance of each. And the greatest luxury for Tuberville at the moment is that the battle is for No. 2, not No. 1. That's still Brandon Cox' job and will be as long as he stays healthy. But that makes it that much better for Auburn because having a strong No. 2 can be vital in a conference as rugged as the SEC.
But it does open the luxury of a Tim Tebow-type role by Kodi Burns, who brings a stronger running ability to the game than any of the other quarterbacks. But if not, he is giving a promise for the future.
The chances are Kodi Burns will be one of those practice field legends that is able to transfer that to the playing field. Time will tell, but that's the beauty of being a freshman, time is on his side.
[More at http://lindyssports.com]
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