Bitter feelings still linger with Auburn players

Go ahead Bowl Championship Series. Just try to snub the Tigers again. See what happens.

"There'd be a riot somewhere," Williams said at Thursday's SEC media days. "In Auburn, they'd tear that little town up."

He said it with a smile on his face, but there's no hiding the residual bitterness felt by Auburn players.

Perfection wasn't enough in 2004. After finishing 13-0, including an SEC title victory against Tennessee, the Tigers still had to watch Southern Cal beat Oklahoma for the BCS national championship.

A few minor tweaks have since been made to the BCS system, but nothing anywhere close to satisfying Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville.

"Nothing has been done to solve the problem," he said. "We have used a Band-Aid.

"You can have all the voting polls you want. Popular vote is not the way you have a national champion. You need to play it on the field."

Tuberville, who surprisingly said this year's bunch of Tigers are more talented than a year ago, hopes his team remembers that left-out feeling.

"Will we have a chip on our shoulder?" he said. "I hope so."

Stewart Next Cadillac?: Auburn's Carnell "Cadillac" Williams and Ronnie Brown, each taken among the top five picks of the NFL draft, have moved on to greener, much richer pastures.

Waiting in the wings as a replacement is former Maryville High School star Carl Stewart.

"He does a lot of the same things and has the same kind of explosiveness as Carnell does," Auburn tackle Marcus McNeill said of Stewart. "I really feel like he's going to do a great job stepping into the system we already have set up for him.

"He's a phenomenal running back and I don't feel like we dropped off that much, if any, at the running back position."

X-Factor: UT quarterback Rick Clausen is convinced former UT quarterback C.J. Leak can help the Gators' gameplan against Tennessee as a football office assistant at Florida.

"I think C.J. can," Clausen said. "C.J. knows our offense very well and I'm sure he's going to help Florida win as much as he can.

"But no matter what C.J. does, it's a matter of us going out and taking care of our business."

Norwood Likes UT Line: Mississippi State's Jerious Norwood and Tennessee's Gerald Riggs were the coaches' preseason picks for first team All-SEC running backs.

Norwood likes the recognition, but admitted he can't help but be somewhat envious of his co-honoree from UT.

"It would be nice to line up behind that big line he has over there," Norwood said of Riggs and the Vols. "But I've got to make do with what I've got and we're going to roll."

Norwood rushed for 1,050 yards and seven touchdowns as a junior last season.

Don't Forget Georgia: Despite three consecutive seasons of top 10 national finishes at Georgia, the Bulldogs are having to get used to hearing hype about Tennessee and Florida in the SEC East this season.

Georgia defensive tackle Gerald Anderson said not so fast.

"Those teams are great teams," he said. "Tennessee and Florida have had great success in the past and I won't take anything away from those teams.

"But I think we match up just as well or better than they do. If we go out and prepare against them, know what's at stake and study our schemes, we should have no trouble beating them."

No trouble?

"It's motivating for us to be ranked behind those two teams," Anderson said. "It's also great because they're good teams. If it were some other teams, you might take it as an insult."

Brain Lapse: Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson had a brief memory glitch while at the podium.

Talking about quarterback Jay Cutler by-passing the NFL draft, Johnson said:

"Jay came back to Furman, excuse me, Vanderbilt, to help our program win."

Oops. Johnson coached at Furman from 1994-2001.