Auburn back to business after naming Trotter starter

By Charles Bennett

AUBURN – A day after Auburn picked Barrett Trotter as the Tigers’ starting quarterback, ending a battle between he and Clint Moseley that began in the spring, it was business as usual at practice.

“Yeah, it has been normal,” said Auburn coach Gene Chizik following Friday’s practice. “I think it was business as usual yesterday and today.”

Trotter said he has felt a little more responsibility since being named the starter.

“I feel more responsible out there when things go wrong,” Trotter said. “I put it on my shoulders. Rather than before, maybe not so much because I wasn’t the starter or whatever the case may be. But definitely just a feeling of more determination and really readiness and preparedness that I’m going to have to have.”

Moseley was visibly upset when speaking with the media Thursday night. Trotter, who is Moseley’s best friend, said the two visited later Thursday night.

“I went to his house last night and talked to him and just hung out for a little bit,” Trotter said. “But I know he’s really disappointed. He competed hard and they kind of drug it out until the last minute, and I know that’s tough for whoever it was going to be that didn’t get the spot. So I know he’s still disappointed, but at the same time, hopefully he can come out of it and do all right.”

Meanwhile, freshman Kiehl Frazier, who was also involved in the competition, is waiting to see what his role on this year’s team will be.

“The coaches haven’t really defined my role yet,” Frazier said. “I don’t know exactly what their plans are for me this year, so I’m just going to go out
there and play every week like I’m the starter, too.”

Tigers will scrimmage today

Auburn will hold its final scrimmage of fall camp today at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“The gist of tomorrow’s scrimmage is again just to try and get some younger guys in there, some guys we feel like still need those live reps,” Chizik said. “There’s no substitute for doing it. We’re going to scrimmage until we feel like they’ve got enough reps to continue to get better at their trade and so don’t know exactly how long it will go, but mainly it’s about trying to get some young guys some more reps.”

Chizik said the Tigers will shift their focus in practice next week to the players who are likely to play in the Sept. 3 season-opener against Utah State.

“Well, there’s no question certainly next week we’re going to start paring things down and giving the reps to the guys who need to be game ready,” Chizik said. “Again, to a certain degree we’re still looking at some guys coming down to the end here. But there also are guys who are going to be playing that we know have to help us and they’ve just got to have reps.”

Burgess getting snaps at guard

Blake Burgess, who is competing with Reese Dismukes for the starting center job, is also getting work at guard.

“That happens, even last year, we had guys that moved from guard to tackle, or we’ll have a new guy come in and so the guards have to move around,” Burgess said. “Coach (Jeff) Grimes always talks about he wants his five starters and a sixth man. And that sixth man has to be able to go in at several different positions so he can move the line around and have his best overall five up next in case somebody gets hurt.”