BMatt’s Monday musings
AUBURN | Bruce Pearl is a straight-shooter when it comes to his basketball team. He’s said all along that Auburn was a good team, not a very good or even a great team, and needed to step up to compete for championships.
He also said that Auburn is going to lose. And he was absolutely right on all accounts
The Tigers did lose, poorly, at Alabama and Florida last week, but that doesn’t mean this group is just going to fold and roll over the rest of the season. Far from it.
Don’t forget, last year’s Final Four and SEC Tournament championship team was just 11-7 in conference play. It lost three consecutive games — to Kentucky and at South Carolina and Mississippi State — in January, and had a two-game losing streak in February — at LSU and at home against Ole Miss.
Last year’s team kept playing hard, made adjustments, stayed confident and went on to make that magical run in March.
I’m not sure this year’s team is capable of reaching the same heights as a year ago, but if Pearl believes his team can and will improve, then so do I, and so should you.
Pearl has completely transformed this basketball program. He has evaluated, recruited, developed and coached players at a level never before seen at Auburn. He has the program winning at a historical rate.
Pearl and his staff know what needs to be done. They’ll make the adjustments, motivate these players and produce plenty more exciting wins before this season comes to a conclusion.
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Speaking of adjustments, if there’s one big thing Gus Malzahn can do to improve Auburn’s football program over the offseason and into 2020 it’s trusting his assistants, especially new offensive coordinator Chad Morris, to do their jobs and curb his micromanaging of the offense.
It worked quite well for P.J. Fleck in the Outback Bowl after offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarroca left for Penn State. Fleck didn’t hesitate to promote Matt Simon from wide receivers coach to offensive coordinator and hand him the play-calling duties.
Here’s what he said about the decision after the game.
“I'm not going to micromanage my people at all. I’m going to hire really good people and we're going to let them coach. My job is to be able to be the cultural coach, be able to make them better coaches, be able to support them any way I possibly can, make their dreams come true one day because they've all made my dream come true. I'm living my dream. I am living my dream every day.
“There are a lot of people that are responsible for that. My way to pay it forward is make sure all their dreams come true. Matt Simon called his first game tonight, which I thought was really big, in the Big Ten against one of the best teams in the country. Did a great job.”
That’s a very refreshing attitude, one that a lot of coaches would do well to emulate.
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On today’s musical journey we go back 38 years to Jan. 20, 1982 and the birth of one of the biggest urban myths in concert history. During an Ozzy Osbourne concert in Des Moines, Iowa, a fan threw a bat on the stage and thinking it was a plastic fake, Osbourne picked it up and started to bite its head off. The bat, however, had other ideas, biting Osbourne’s tongue. Osbourne would receive a rabies shot immediately after the concert. But all of the Prince of Darkness’ encounters with fowl weren’t myth.
A year earlier in March of 1981 at a sales convention for Epic Records to promote his debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, a drunk and bored Osbourne asked a CBS PR woman if she liked animals. She answered yes, and Osbourne promptly picked up a nearby dove, bit its head off and spit it on the table. He then picked up a second dove and did the same.
A native of Birmingham, England, Osbourne was inspired by the Beatles to become a rock star, leaving school at the age of 15 and becoming a founding member of Black Sabbath in 1969. One of the pioneers of heavy metal, Black Sabbath sold over 70 million records and had a number of successful albums with Osbourne and after his firing in 1979. Osbourne embarked on a solo career, releasing Blizzard of Ozz in 1980, which included several hits such as Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley. He went on to release 11 studio albums as a solo artist, and his total record sales with Black Sabbath and as a solo artist are now over 100 million. He’s been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Black Sabbath and the UK Music Hall of Fame as a solo artist. He also starred in a reality show on MTV, The Osbournes, for four seasons from 2002-05.