The Auburn Tigers and entourage arrived Monday, a posse of about 400 strong, and have their first BCS title game practice Tuesday.
"We are excited to play in this game and we are extremely excited to get going in Arizona and get to practice tomorrow," Tigers coach Gene Chizik said. "We have had a lot of good days of practice at home, and we are ready to get this thing going here in Arizona, so again we are very proud, very honored to be here."
Part of what Chizik called "a great two and a half, three weeks" of practice included preparing for the Ducks' tempo on offense. The one that had teams faking injuries to slow it down. Yes, you, Arizona State and Cal.
"If you don't, you are kind of missing the boat here," Chizik said. "And, you know, one of the things that we've had a little bit of an advantage over somebody that doesn't run that type of pace in their own offense... is use our own offense which has been something that over the past two years that we have really been able to control."
In other words, Auburn's defense working against its offense in practice is what they feel to be solid preparation for the Ducks.
We shall see.