AUBURN | I just hate seeing a young man with the talent of Nick Coe not fulfill his potential at Auburn. It’s especially frustrating with Coe after he put together such a successful redshirt sophomore season leading the team in sacks.
This time a year ago, Coe was being projected as a first or second round NFL Draft pick. Like Derrick Brown and Marlon Davidson, Coe chose to return to school this fall, but unlike those two who have definitely improved their draft status, Coe has taken a dramatic step back.
He finished his junior season with just 15 tackles, 3.0 tackles-for-loss and no sacks. A year ago, those numbers were 27 tackles, 13.5 tackles-for-loss and 7.0 sacks.
What went wrong for Coe? I’m not here to tear him down, but it’s clear that academics and football haven’t been his priorities for the past year. With college now behind him, Coe needs to make training for the draft his top priority because the work he does over the next two to three months — good or bad — will definitely show during the NFL Combine, if he’s fortunate enough to get an invite, and Auburn’s Pro Day.
A poor showing would likely mean he’d have to earn a spot in the league via the free agent route. But Coe still possesses a ton of talent and upside, and the door is not closed on him turning things back around and earning a spot in the draft.
Here’s hoping he swings that door wide open in 2020.
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And then there were three.
UAB’s 77-68 win over Duquesne knocked the Dukes from the ranks of the unbeatens, leaving just No. 12 Auburn (11-0), No. 20 San Diego State (12-0) and Liberty (14-0) as the only undefeated teams left in NCAA basketball. With just one game remaining before conference play — home against a 5-7 Lipscomb squad — the Tigers are in great shape to enter SEC play with a perfect 12-0 record. That’s fantastic, of course, but I’d caution Auburn fans not to build up their expectations too high.
Auburn is a good team, no doubt, but it’s not as explosive offensively or close to as good of a 3-point shooting team as it was a year ago. This team is grinding out wins by playing tough defense for 40 minutes and creating offense from that defense through a strong transition game. Auburn has managed to win several games when it’s not shot well because of its defense and a relentless work ethic.
The Tigers can certainly win a lot of conference games with the same formula, but there will be games that don’t turn out so well when they don’t shoot well. And the opener at Mississippi State Jan. 4 is certainly a game that could bring a quick end to AU’s winning streak.
Auburn has lost 15 of the last 17 games against MSU at the Hump and the Bulldogs feature a team with a veteran scoring point guard in Tyson Carter, a physical big in Reggie Perry and a stretch-four in Robert Woodward II, who is making 53.6 percent of his 3-point attempts.
Auburn is going to have to be a team that fights and scraps through SEC play and that opener in Starkville is going to be a dogfight.
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In today’s musical journey, we step back 74 years to 1945 and the creation of one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time. Robert Wells and Mel Tormé wrote what was originally called Merry Christmas to You during a blistering summer day in Los Angeles, Calif. As the story was told by Tormé, he walked into Wells’ house, saw four lines of verse written on a pad including Chestnuts roasting on an open fire and Jack Frost nipping at your nose, and 40 minutes later the song was born. Wells had originally written the lines to give him cool thoughts during a hot day. Renamed the Christmas Song, it’s been recorded by more than 250 artists but the first and still best was Nate King Cole.
The Nat King Cole trio recorded the song in June of 1945 and then again in August with a small string section. Cole recorded it in 1953 with a full orchestra and one last time in 1961 in stereo with a full orchestra. The ’61 recording is the definitive version, which is played so often today during the holiday season. Cole’s daughter, the late Natalie Cole, recorded a duet of the Christmas Song in 1999 with her late father by sampling his ’61 recording into her version.
The elder Cole was born in Montgomery, Ala. in 1919, moving with his family to Chicago when he was four years old. He dropped out of high school when he was fifteen to pursue a music career. He started out playing piano with his brother before forming the Nat King Cole trio in 1937. He recorded over 150 songs that reached the charts and sold over 50 million records. He’s been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Jazz Hall of Fame and awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Cole was also the first African-American to host an American television series with the Nat King Cole show from 1956-57. A heavy smoker, Cole passed away in 1965 at the age of 45 due to lung cancer.
