AUBURN, Ala. (AP) - The Auburn Tigers are keeping their new

offense under wraps.

The Tigers ran about 100 plays during their first preseason

scrimmage at Jordan-Hare Stadium Saturday morning and unlike in

past seasons, it was off-limits to the public and media and no

statistics were released.

However, coach Tommy Tuberville offered a mostly positive

assessment of the performance of quarterbacks Kodi Burns and Chris

Todd - who were not among the four players made available for

interviews - and the offense along with some young players.

"Offensively, we didn't hold anything back," Tuberville said.

"The quarterbacks looked pretty sharp considering it was their

first time in the stadium throwing the ball around. We ran it about

half the time, threw it about half the time.

"There were some big plays."

How big? That's a secret.

Tuberville said neither quarterback threw an interception, but

also said the two contenders for the starting job still must reach

more of a comfort zone in offensive coordinator Tony Franklin's

spread offense.

"We're going to have to have leadership out of our quarterbacks

in terms of how this offense runs," he said. "Today they were

just trying to survive and get themselves going and not worrying

about everyone else. We've got to have some confidence out of Kodi

and Chris going into the next few weeks, of them knowing what

they're doing and what everybody else is doing and getting in a

little better shape."

Tailback Brad Lester said he and Ben Tate both ran for

touchdowns, and young receivers Quindarius Carr and Phillip

Pierre-Louis also scored.

Tuberville said Pierre-Louis also had an 80-yarder called back

because of a penalty.

"We've never scored a lot of points on the defense, especially

in the first scrimmage," Lester said. "It seemed like we almost

did what we wanted to do on offense. Pretty much the defense

couldn't stop us."

Tuberville said the defense had "a bunch of missed

assignments" and some missed tackles. Fatigue might have played a

part in that.

"We gased about three-quarters of the way through and it looked

like we were running in the mud," Tuberville said.

Receiver Mario Fannin and center Jason Bosley sat out the

scrimmage. Other veterans like defensive tackle Sen'Derrick Marks

and Lester played little. Lester said most of the carries went to

freshman Eric Smith.

Tuberville said freshman cornerbacks D'Antoine Hood and Neiko

Thorpe got plenty of time on the field and tackled well. An already

thin secondary was hit in the past week by Aairon Savage's

season-ending knee injury and freshman DeRon Furr's decision to

quit the team.

"We wanted to put some pressure on the younger guys that are

going to have to play because of injury," he said. "We wanted to

put some pressure on them, and we certainly did that. They had to

make some plays.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)