Sudden change: Auburn's newcomers join veterans for a run at the BCS championshi

[Saniflush]

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/12/sudden_change_auburns_newcomer.html

AUBURN -- Ryan Pugh played through a losing season, a coaching change and having to learn a new offense. 

Tailback Mike Dyer has waltzed right into the BCS championship game.

Such is the mix of the Auburn football team as it prepares to play Oregon on Jan. 10. The team is top-loaded with experience, like the senior Pugh, and with newcomers such as Dyer and quarterback Cam Newton, all of whom have carried the Tigers to a No. 1 ranking and a 13-0 record. 

From freshman to senior, and through the relatively few players in between, Auburn players say they are trying to take their surprising climb to the top with the same calm that has carried them to eight comeback victories. 

"My freshman year, I just wanted to come in here and be part of something special," Dyer said. "There's a lot of things that happened this year for a freshman." 

Pugh has been on a rollercoaster, from a nine-win freshman season to a five-win sophomore season to eight wins and now 13. 

"Everybody came here to win and I think after years of such uncertainty a couple of years ago, it's been something that you couldn't have dreamed of any better," Pugh said down the stretch. 

Senior linebacker Josh Bynes says he knew the turnaround was coming. 

"All of us had that same mindset that we're going to come in, we're going to do what we're supposed to do and go win games," Bynes said a few weeks ago. "I don't think people believed us, especially when I said it in the spring and when I said it at Media Day. 

"People thought, 'OK, Josh is probably just talking noise, and Auburn might be this, might be that.' But obviously we're in the position where all of us felt like we were going to be at." 

Dyer has done his job, rushing for 950 yards, the most for a freshman in Auburn history. 

Then there's that Newton fellow. He's a junior college transfer, and, thus, a rookie, at least on paper. His Heisman Trophy season has seen him account for 49 touchdowns and lead the SEC in rushing, among other things. 

Dyer and Newton helped turn things around in quick order. 

"It's very strange," Dyer said. "Just last year I was in high school just watching these guys, and now I'm on the same team and I get to play with these guys for a national championship." 

Dyer knows something about the big time and big-time players. 

He was one of the Big Three high school running backs in the nation last year, all recruited by Auburn. Oddly, Dyer will have crossed paths with the other two by the time the championship game is done. 

Dyer and Auburn beat Marcus Lattimore twice this season, first in a win over South Carolina on Sept. 25, and again over the Gamecocks in the SEC title game on Dec. 4. Now, Dyer and Lache Seastrunk can get reacquainted at the title game, though Seastrunk is being redshirted. 

They knew each other through recruiting trips. 

"Lache and I are closer than Marcus Lattimore and I just because we came on the same visits a lot of times. He's a good guy. I'm just happy that he got put in a spot that he wanted to go to," Dyer said. 

And now he has a chance to deny Seastrunk a championship. 

"It's the same thing about Marcus Lattimore, going against him in the championship," Dyer said. "This is even better. It's just one of those things where top running backs seem to play each other in special games. It's just fun right now."