Auburn football coach Gene Chizik has talked each week to his players about avoiding distractions and focusing on trying to improve as a team.
The honed-in Tigers have not seemed fazed by the attention accompanying the Bowl Championship Series standings nor the NCAA checking into junior quarterback Cam Newton’s recruitment, but this week is different. For the first time all season, there is a tangible reward that awaits, as a win over visiting Georgia on Saturday afternoon would result in the Tigers claiming the Southeastern Conference’s West Division title.
“There is not a lot you have to talk about,” Chizik said Sunday. “Everybody knows what’s at stake. We said weeks ago that if you keep winning, the stakes get higher every week. One of the reasons we don’t talk about it a lot is because they already know it.
BCS STANDINGS1. Oregon2. Auburn3. TCU4. Boise State5. LSU6. Stanford7. Wisconsin8. Nebraska9. Ohio State10. Oklahoma State
“So we’ll just try to proceed business as usual, but obviously everyone on our team knows how big the week is.”