Blake remains doubtful, Morgan out for year

Auburn coach Gene Chizik met with the media Wednesday night after practice. Here's what he had to say.

Chizik

“Two really good practices this week I feel like, yesterday and today. Again, I feel like we’re continuing to improve. This will be a really great test for us. This is a really, really good football team as we know. But practice has gone well this week. Again we’ve got to continue to maintain a level of focus again tomorrow and Friday and give ourselves a chance to win. But I feel like we made some progress this week, again in some areas. So one more day of practice and we need it, but practice went well this week.”

Anything new on Emory Blake?

“He didn’t practice tonight. I’m going to use the word doubtful, but again we’re going to try and bring him up to speed by game time, but again, he didn’t practice tonight.”

With him out, DeAngelo (Benton) and those other guys stepping up?

“They really have and it’s great to see guys like DeAngelo and Travante Stallworth, Quan Bray, Jaylon Denson, those guys just have to step up. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter who is playing out there, somebody has to step up and play a great role. D Lo again, as we mentioned earlier in the week, he had a great catch at a huge time in the ball game Saturday night. So he’s going to make a few of those.”

How about Chris Davis?

“He’s done a little more. He has practiced some. We’re going to keep treating him, bringing him up to game time. We’ll see where he’s at by Saturday.”

What did you think about ESPN’s Year of the Quarterback?

“Well, I haven’t seen it. It was great exposure for Auburn football to the fans and recruits. It was just good for our football team even, with the exposure we’re going to get from that.”

Any moments where you thought, ‘Gosh, I don’t want a camera here.’

“There are parts that hard, to let people in and see the inside daily routine of what we do and how we do it. There were times when it was certainly challenging for me. It’s not always my personality. Again, in the name of trying to expose the fans and recruits to Auburn football and what we try to do here every day, I thought it was a positive experience.”

What is Anthony Morgan’s status?

“Anthony’s not making the trip. It looks like he may be out for the year. Again, we’re going to continue to monitor and evaluate him, but right now, that’s what it looks like.”

Did he get hurt in practice?

“He had an injury that occurred that was not necessarily on the practice field. But I’m not going to get into details. It was an accident. Again, we’re going to continue to monitor it, but it does not look good that he will return for the year.”

Drew Cole, has he kind of moved into a student coaching role?

“He helps us a lot in terms of signaling and doing some things that kind of assumes the role of a coach. He’s smart and he can help us with different things but he’s also involved with our special teams as well. But he does a good job for us.”