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Yes, this is a quick special edition of Locked On Auburn. We just got done minutes ago hearing from coach Alex Gholish. A lot of it was recapping last night's scrimmage, the scrimmage Thursday night. And there was some kind of big picture takeaways as well. We'll touch on both of those things a little bit. But all in all, kind of a lot of the stuff that we talked about on this morning's show kind of seemed to line up a lot with that. But talked a lot about Byram and the things that he did do well. And then also the things that he likes to do as a leader and the things that he's focused on. That was one of the things that stood out to me the most of just how high on Byram he is. And a lot of that came from a question about Byram and Cam Newton interacting and meeting with each other. Yeah, I wish that narrative would go away. I'm just being honest. Last night didn't help that. I know, it doesn't. And I think it's unfair to both parties. But I think there's something that you and I talked about previously in a podcast that I was so glad to see him bring up. And that is sometimes there's this false narrative that somebody struggles in a scrimmage or doesn't perform at a certain level when one of the biggest tools in their tool belt gets taken away from them. And that is being able to run when the play breaks down past the line of scrimmage. He was very, very intentional in describing a quick whistle from SEC officials that were there last night. And that he wanted it to be that way and don't read too much into it because one of his biggest attributes, Byram Brown, is running with the football. You take that away. It's a hard read to kind of see how effective he is. Yeah, of course, a thousand yard rusher a year ago. As far as things that he said that stood out last night, I'm going to start with corners as far as like being physical on the edge. I thought that was good. And then later when he was asked specifically about the corners, really mentioned everybody that we thought, right, Andre Jordan mentioned Blake would be first, which I thought was interesting. As far as, you know, it sounds like would be impressed goalish in those one-on-one meetings, like right when he got here saying, Hey, coach, it's my time. I'm going to show you. I'm going to earn it. And it sounds like he has based on what Goulash was talking about, talked about pleasant and, you know, kind of how he was banged up a little bit last year, but he's played a lot of football. They put a lot on him. Andre Jordan Jr. said, you know, he's not super vocal, but like learning how to use his frame and Eric Wenders talked very highly about him. And then I'm like, are they going to mention Shamar? Is that coming? And it did happen. He's like, look, Shamar, when he's playing his best, could be among the best in the country. But when he's at his worst, like those are conversations you've got to have. And he talked about his mature. I mean, he really called the guy out. He did. As far as, you know, immature and lack of consistency. So I thought that was pretty eye-opening. Most eye-opening statement was that he said he could be one of the best corners in the country. But he said he's uber, uber talented, but he has to learn to not take plays off and to play hard every snap. And then as you mentioned, we've had many multiple conversations about that. That's concerning. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I think it's encouraging on one aspect of it that he puts it together. You're talking about an ultra-talented guy that could be a lockdown corner. But if he doesn't, that's a concern. But I think from a safety net standpoint or an insurance policy mentality, you've got Jordan would be unpleasant. You're okay. And I think that was one of the things that took away from that as well. Which I mean, we wanted four, right? And so you really have three. Now if somebody gets hurt, you know what happens with Shamar? And you've got to keep bringing Shamar along because the ceiling is so high for him. Huge, huge. Which we knew that as a recruits while we all wanted them. We were bummed when we lost them. Now we got them back. Weird situation. One of the first questions he was asked after his opening statement was, and I kept thinking like, man, the polar opposite of what we were doing a year ago. When the question was asked, like, okay, sounds like the defense won yesterday. It typically seems like defense is ahead of the game right now. That seems to be normal. And it kind of got his thoughts on it. And he talked a little bit about some of the stuff we've heard before and what we've talked about. But then goes into like, it's supposed to be tough. Like, okay, if the defense is dominating, let's make it as tough on the offense as we possibly can. But quote, you want it to be hard. You want practice to be as hard as it can be. You want to make people better. You want people to have tough days so they can learn to fight through it. Which of course, you know, a big narrative last off season was. Make it easy. Make it easy on him. Make it easy on him. Give him some confidence. So I thought that was important. I think it's telling that he uses that analogy and he went on to explain a little bit more that he wants practice to be so hard so that when the lights comes on, it's not that big of a jump. See, there's a problem when you get into a game situation and the moment becomes too big for certain people that excelled in practice. Then you know you did not have the right kind of practice. Correct. Very encouraging for him to say, I want it to be hard. And if it's not, I'm going to keep doing anything I can to make it harder. Yeah, we want our guys to step on the field in Atlanta against Baylor to start the season and be like, thank goodness we're not facing our defense anymore. Anymore. Oh my goodness, we're going to face Baylor's defense. How it should be. That's how it should be. How it should be. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. Kind of went position by position as far as who stood out, talked about the secondary, set up front, defense played well, offensively talked about Cole Best being consistent as far as running the show up there. He gave love at tight end to Jake Johnson and Xavier Newsom. Said Xavier Newsom's come on. We didn't really know how he'd be and it sounds like that's been a pleasant surprise, which is good. But then running back, I think was the only position where he just said one name. He did. Quarterback I guess would be the other. He mentioned Jeremiah Cobb. He mentioned Jeremiah Cobb settling in as being that dude. It is weird because we heard some things about Omar last night in the scrimmage that you would make you think he would mention him, but he didn't. And he mentioned Cobb and he talked about the consistency in him being that dude. Well, that shouldn't be a surprise. That's exactly what we should hear. I'm more interested in, okay, Washington, Omar, who's the backup? How are they going to split reps? And he did not dive into that at all. Yeah. Speculate on that. Why do you think that is? Because it hasn't, I don't think it's become clear cut yet. Yeah. And I think he's probably, gosh, just his pure speculation, but I'm going to get thrown out there. But every other position group though, when he wants a little bit more from somebody, he'll just say it. I think he's secretly wants more from, if I had to guess, I'm just saying, I think he's secretly wants more from Washington and he wants him to emerge as RB2 and be that guy that when Cobb comes out of the game, you can count on. Yeah. I kind of expect him to get some love to Omar. We, you know, Omar scored a touchdown last night. So, but yeah, that, that one. The spring thing, let me just say that too. I wanted to touch on that. He mentioned early on in his opening statements about how with no spring portal, you have what you have. And I asked the question, does that make you coach differently? And boy, he said, yeah, because right now we'd be having conversations as to who's better than we thought and who's not going to make it. We're going to have to cut them loose. Well, it's, this is who we have. This is who we're going to have going into summer. Let's coach them up to get in where we need to be. Yeah. I wish you would have gone into a little bit more on like the actual coaching of that, not just the conversations about the coaching, but still interesting nonetheless. A few more things that stood out. We'll touch on that in just a moment right here. Unlocked on Auburn today. Show brought to you by our friends at game time. Game time is the best place to buy tickets. It doesn't matter if it's for football, basketball, baseball, concert, comedy. I mean, Darryl buys more tickets on game time than anybody. I do. Darryl's an events guy. Yeah. And of course, when I go to events, I only use game time as well. Download the game time app. Use promo code locked on, L-O-C-K-E-D-O, when you get $20 off your order today. Today show also brought to you by our friends at Fandle. Fandle is America's number one sports book. Auburn opening at a four and a half point favorite. So low. Over Tulsa. That was low to me. I was shocked. A little surprised by that too. Yeah. I was looking on the action. Of course, all tournament long. It's almost done for both obviously the NIT and the NCAA tournament. That's over at Fandle.com. That's Fandle.com. All right, Darryl. Other things that stood out to me, the former player stuff I thought was really, really interesting. As far as just wanting these guys around and in the building and he kept referring to Cam and to Tequillo, Spikes and players reaching out asking like, OK coach, what do you need from us? And he's like, just be around. OK, yeah, I've been doing just be here. Just like interact with people, let them feel their energy and just talked about the importance of that. And then we're kind of differing opinions and differing stories and really some conflicting stories about the previous regime as far as like, you know, how welcoming and how sought after players were to come here. Bringing Jarris McIntyre in as far as having the relationships with high school coaches and also former players. I think that's, yeah, I think that's worth noting if nothing else. A couple of things jumped out of me. First of all, he went out of his way to mention Bo Jackson has spent some significant time around the complex. Three hours, he said. We've not heard that. That's not been on socials. You mentioned Jarris McIntyre, former Auburn receiver. His role is not only to have great relationships with high school coaches, but he said I want him bringing back everybody that played at Auburn from the Bo Jackson's and Cam Newton's to the 1980s walk on because they've lived it. And then when they asked him, coach, what do you want from me? He said, just be around. We want these players to feed off your energy. Because if you saw the Cam Newton video this morning, there's energy there and there's intensity and there's purpose about what he wants from this program. Then was asked about the iron bowl stuff and really went into like, look, this is important to our fan base. I didn't grow up here. I didn't have the coach in the state yet, but clearly, whether it's people visiting, whether it's talking to boosters, whether it's seeing fans around town, trying out a new restaurant that he hadn't tried. Hey, that last game of the season is important to us is what he said. And he hit a quote that I love. Me too. I love. I love it unless you make it important. He's like, so if it's a big deal, let's make it a big deal. And so they lean into it. That's kind of the period of practice where there's a lot of competition and it sounds like different former players have gone up and talked about exactly what that game means. And then went into the, I mean, just really the math as far as the roster where until a few years ago, everybody in your roster was from the Southeast. So at least if they weren't in the state, they still knew. And now like there's, what he said, 30 or 40 guys that aren't from the Southeast anymore because of just the nature of the transfer portal and how national recruiting is and player acquisition is. So I thought that was intentional and enlightening. And once again, like we've talked about the details with this guy, this one really lines up with all of that. He said two things in that set of answering that question about the, the, the iron ball period that resonated with me, one you touched on. It's not important unless you make it important. And the second thing which made me grin from ear to ear is, and I don't care when anybody else thinks about it. And we know what that is. I mean, you know, the narrative, the media, that people from the other side of the state, you know, latching onto it, making it like little brother mentality or obsessive. He just said, and I really don't care. And that just is exactly what I suspected when we started talking about it two days ago. I love hearing that kind of stuff. And then they show awareness. It shows awareness. It shows we are who we are. We're not concerning ourselves with you. Secondly, a lot of the goal line drills, they wrapped around that iron ball period, which is from an intensity standpoint. That's that makes sense too. Yeah. And they've also kind of classified like when they're, you know, it sounds like when they're doing like sprints and conditioning at the end, they call that the iron ball, like just the end of the season, end of the session, end of the practice. And another thing he's talked about the receiver room, he's talked about how Chaz Nimrod has been, he's like the best player he's seen of himself. You know, he saw Chaz as a freshman at Tennessee and then saw Chaz last year. So what, like a fourth year junior. And he said this version of Chaz Nimrod has been the best version of Chaz that he's seen, which is good. Because once again, Chaz was on pace for a thousand yards last year before he got hurt. Talk about how Kishan Singleton has been steady. And then he talks about the Sean Spencer of all receivers. Talks about how great Dashaun Spencer has been and how Neptune has been out. So it's allowed, you know, opportunity for Spencer. And so now he's with the twos and he thinks he'll be taking reps with the ones over the next few weeks. So Dashaun Spencer was a freshman we talked about going into spring. And then Brian, Brian Williams, Jr. kind of, you know, was the early spring fling. But Dashaun Spencer is not going anywhere. I think that's good. So he gained 10 pounds of good weight since he's got here. And oh, by the way, he's going to run him with the one sum in the next couple of weeks and is on punt return. I mean, you put a freshman and he had Neptune as well on punt return when people asked about special teams and kickoff and punt return. So to put that kind of trust in a freshman to be back there returning pints, I thought was interesting also. Yeah. So the Sean Spencer, there you go. There you go. Anything else? I think that's all pretty much my notes. I have been very, very impressed with his attention to detail, even how he answers questions. He is so detail oriented. And I mean, he answers questions long. It's not short coach speak answers. It's very, very long and detailed and intentional the way he answers questions. So all in all, first opportunity I've had to hear him speak in person and came away really impressed. How can people check out everything you've got going on? Be with you Wednesdays and Fridays. So Sunday night, at least your Sunday NIT championship. Not everybody can play for a championship. Auburn has an opportunity to do that. That's right. And we'll go live after the game. That's right. They, they opted in. You might as well win the whole dang thing, baby. Please like the video. Please subscribe. We'll see you next time. This has been locked on Auburn. The winner games are officially here. And if you're anything like us, you're locking in for events you only get to see on the biggest stage every four years. 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