Homecoming for Borges

AUBURN, Ala. | Most every practice would end with a two-minute period. It would often be a good time for Will MuschampClick [rl]Here to view this Link.. Not so much for Al Borges.

"We were not near as good on offense as we were my first two years and we were good on defense," Borges said. "We would run this two-minute drill at the end of practice and the defense would inevitably kick our butt and I would inevitably get mad, because I do that.

"Will would go, 'OK, it's time for the Al Borges drill.' He knew when the drill was over, I was going to be mad. That I do remember. I remember it like it was yesterday."

Yesterday has been seven years for Borges, who served as Auburn's offensive coordinator from 2004-08. Muschamp was the defensive coordinator for Borges' final two years before returning for a second stint this season.

"We had a very good relationship, I think, and a very professional relationship and great respect for each other," said Borges, who will square off against Muschamp Saturday as San Jose State's offensive coordinator. "That's what made the thing work. If you've got that, you've got a heck of a deal going.

"If guys are so competitive with each other that they can't see the forest through the trees, I don't know that that's very helpful. But we didn't have that. We had a good relationship."

Of course, Borges knows exactly what to expect from a Muschamp defense, and it's really not about X's and O's.

"I'm expecting them to play their butts off because that's all I know with Will Muschamp's defense," Borges said. "My exposure, when we coached against him at LSU and I worked with him at Auburn, is those guys were 11 bullets running to the ball. And if they weren't, he was screaming bloody murder.

"He is a demanding guy, that's going to see to it that he gets 11, and I know he's fired a lot of guys looking at their roster, every time I watch a game there's a bunch of new guys in there. But he's going to find the 11 that are going to play Will Muschamp football."

Muschamp, of course, has a pretty good idea of what to expect from Borges.

"I know Al Borges very well. They'll be a well-coached football team," Muschamp said. "Al always believes in the power play, and then one-back and two-back power.

"He does a really good job with motions and shifts and giving you situations where you have to leverage the formations well. He's going to give you some different looks each week going into it."

Borges has lost 75 pounds since his Auburn days. "It's like tossing a lawn chair off the Titanic. I'm still too fat, but I'm less fat," he quipped.

He'll turn 60 in October and is nearing the end of a career that has seen him coach at some of the nation's top programs such as California, Oregon, UCLA, Auburn and Michigan.

"Every time you coach some place, you leave there and you either leave there with a plus or a minus thought," Borges said. "You might go, 'Oh God, I coached there. That was not a good experience.' Then you go somewhere else and go, 'That wasn't bad!'

"But when I think of Auburn, I think of nothing but plusses. My four years coaching there, I wouldn't trade anything for it."

Borges helped guide Auburn to an undefeated record and SEC Championship in 2004 but when he looks back on his time there and compares it to other programs, it's the Iron Bowl rivalry that stands out the most. Of course, it helps that Borges was 4-0 against Alabama.

"My four years there we were fortunate to win every year, and that makes your life so much easier if you live in Alabama. That's No. 1, first through fourth," he said. "Some years we played really good against them, some years we didn't and still won, and that's really the bottom line in that thing.

"I've been in the big ones now. UCLA-USC, Michigan-Ohio State, Auburn-Alabama -- but that one is special and those are the ones that -- if there's a special memory, that would be it."

Borges said he's not ruling out a return to Auburn or the state of Alabama one day.

"When I was 20-something years old, I would never thought I would want to live in Alabama or would live in Alabama, but after my five years I lived in Alabama, it was awesome. I loved living in Alabama and I wouldn't mind living in Alabama again," he said. "It's just amazing that you go through an experience, you learn a lot of stuff. You learn a lot of stuff about yourself that you didn't know, even.

"I'd been coaching a long time when I went to Auburn, and it was really neat. It's good for me to come back. I haven't been back to Auburn since 2008, I guess it was. It's been a while. This is an opportunity to go back. I wish -- it's all business. We're going to go in there, we're going to play and we're going to leave. It would be nice if there was more time and I could see some people, but I am looking forward to it. The game will be fun and we'll see what we can do."