The Cadillac!

[Bluemound Freak]

This is for all my SEC commrades and also any fans of Teams that must Face Auburn in the upcoming football season!


He's Back!!!!!!!!!



Cadillac Out of Garage, Running Smoothly
By Mark Murphy, Inside the Auburn Tigers
Date: Mar 9, 2002

Auburn, Ala.--For Carnell Williams running a football is like riding a bicycle.

In his first football scrimmage since going down with a season-ending shoulder injury in the opening quarter of the Alabama game, the sophomore tailback showed absolutely no signs of the injury as he and his teammates participated in a two-hour and 15-minute scrimmage on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
"It felt great," Williams said when asked about his shoulder. "I would have to say it is 100 percent now. I don't even think about it. It is just like old times now. I am back to playing football."

Head coach Tommy Tuberville was impressed with what he saw from Williams on Saturday as he carried the ball 11 times for 48 yards and had the most impressive run of the day, a 17-yard burst to the three-yard line. On the next play, he powered through the middle of the defense for a score.

"He will probably carry it a few more times next week," Tuberville said. "He has got plenty of time between now and two-a-days. We want to look at the younger running backs. I thought Chris Butler did a good job today. He was a bright point of the scrimmage. He got better. All of the running backs are looking good." Butler ran nine times for 40 yards and and caught four Daniel Cobb passes for 28 yards

Williams had been hit hard earlier in the week when the Tigers put the pads on for the first time on Tuesday. He passed those tests with no problem and was able to withstand even more contact on Saturday.

The sophomore said the hardest part of the injury was watching everyone else play while he had to go through rehab. "It was just real tough because I had never had a serious injury that sidelined me from a game. I really didn't know how to take that. With me rehabbing, and the team out there practicing and playing and going through it together, I was just basically just rehabbing and couldn't be a part of it. I am just glad to be back into things."

Williams was also in midseason form in pumping up his offensive linemen, a group that is rebuilding with the loss of starters Kendall Simmons, Mike Pucillo and Hart McGarry. "Those guys are going to be special," the tailback said with a smile.

Tuberville was less impressed with the offensive front, saying, "We have a long ways to go, especially on the offensive line. We have got a lot of young guys making a lot of mental mistakes, but that is the reason you practice."

Commenting on the overall picture, Tuberville said, "It was a good scrimmage. It was good to see the guys fly around. Offensively, we started off slowly, but I think that had more to do with the defense playing hard and making plays. Both sides of the ball ran well and did a lot of good things."

Anyone looking for separation at the QB spot will probably need to keep looking. Cobb hit 16-28 passes for 146 yards and Campbell hit 16-27 for 140 yards. There were no interceptions and no turnovers on Saturday.

"I thought the quarterbacks both did well," Tuberville added. "We made a few wrong decisions, but overall the decisions were good. We still have to get the ball outside and a little bit deeper downfield and get it to our wide receivers, but for the first scrimmage a lot of them were pretty nervous coming out here in front of a few people in the stands. We have been putting a lot of pressure on them in practice so I thought they did well. We have a lot of work to do.

"We will take off until Wednesday now and try to get some of the guys that were injured back on the field before we get back really started for the second half of spring practice. That was our sixth practice and we've obviously got a lot of good ones left."

The Tigers have 15 total practice days including the April 6th A-Day intrasquad football game.




:moon: :thefinger Hey Bama6895 see ya in Tuscaloosa bout November!

 

[wareagle]

More Cadillac rumblings...

More Cadillac rumblings...

This kid may be a heisman contender in two years, mark my word:nono:


Williams back, running `downhill'


03/13/02

CHARLES GOLDBERG
News staff writer

AUBURN Carnell Williams didn't have to wait long to see if his once-broken collarbone could again stand up to the rigors of college football.

Defensive end Roshard Gilyard saw to that on the first day of spring practice when he slammed the Auburn running back into the ground, busted shoulder first.


"I didn't even feel it," Williams said. "I thought about it when I got up, and I was like, `I just fell on my shoulder, and it didn't do anything.'

"That was a plus."

Also the understatement of spring practice for the Tigers.

Williams, who led Auburn in rushing with 614 yards as a freshman despite a modest number of carries, suffered a broken collarbone and broke a million Auburn hearts early in the Tigers' game against Alabama on Nov.17.

Auburn went 0-3 from there.

But Williams says he's back to full speed, and a change in Auburn's running strategy may allow the Tigers' star to shine even more.

Auburn's running backs have been instructed to and this will be the catch phrase of 2002 "run downhill," which means attack the line of scrimmage quicker. Auburn will spend less time running to the outside and more time running between the tackles this season.

Last year, Auburn offensive linemen were instructed to zone block, which meant any defender who wandered into their area was hit. Now it's full-steam ahead.

"It really doesn't matter, but downhill is what I really love," Williams said.

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, who will watch his team practice today for the seventh time this spring, likes it, too. He says that approach will make the Tigers more physical.

"Most of our offense the last two years has been finesse, sideline to sideline," Tuberville said. "What we haven't been able to do the last few years is be able to attack between the tackles. So we're trying to be more physical between the tackles, let our running backs run downhill so to speak, instead of sideways along the line of scrimmage.

"It's going to make our offensive line more physical."

But the benefits, Tuberville said, do not stop there.

"It helps you a lot of places: short-yardage, keeping out of second-and-long, in the red zone in case they gang up on you," he explained. "It helps the entire mentality of the team.

"We've been a finesse team and have had success, but we recognized our weaknesses."

But the biggest weakness may have occurred last year when Williams suffered the broken collarbone.

"I never had a serious injury that sidelined me from a game, so I really didn't know how to take it," Williams said.

He took it by rehabilitating while Auburn lost to LSU and North Carolina. Now Williams said the soreness has gone.

"Probably two or three weeks ago it would be sore when I slept on it," he said. "Now, it's fine."

That doesn't necessarily mean Williams will be pounded this spring or even next fall in practice. Auburn coaches will watch him carefully, though he had 11 carries for 44 yards in the first scrimmage of the spring last Saturday.

"We want to bring him along slowly," Tuberville said. "Obviously, he still has that injury in the back of his mind. He's got plenty of time between now and two-a-days" in the fall.

"I'm just glad," Williamssaid, "to be back into things."