AUBURN | Can Auburn fans experience joy from this football season?

Yes, but it depends on their perspective and if they’re ready to accept this team for what it is, which is pretty average by SEC standards. No offense intended.

Right now, too many are too angry to even enjoy Saturday’s win over Ole Miss. I’m not going to disagree that Gus Malzahn’s team shouldn’t be better in year eight or Auburn alumni and fans shouldn’t expect more from a coach that makes $7 million a year.

I’m certainly not going to argue that a 7-16 record against Alabama, Georgia and LSU isn’t good enough or that Malzahn and his staff need to recruit better in order to compete with the big boys in the SEC because it’s all true.

I agree with all the angry people — to a point.

And the point is no matter what is said or written or thought or screamed, nothing is going to change. Barring a complete collapse, Malzahn will return as Auburn’s head coach in 2021.

And while you’re angrily tweeting or hate-posting on your favorite Auburn message board, you’re missing a pretty young, fun and sometimes frustrating team that plays its tail off for 60 minutes every Saturday.

So my most heartfelt suggestion is to just let it go. Fully assimilate, if you will, into this football season with all its drama. I mean, if there’s one thing you can count on from the Tigers this season is that just about every one of their games is coming down to a final fourth-quarter drive.

That’s fun, right? And nerve-wracking too. I know.

Remember, it was just two and a half months ago we weren’t sure if we would even have a college football season. Having live sports back in my life has brought plenty of joy to me over the last several months whether it was college football, the NBA or MLB.

So open up your heart and mind, let Auburn football back in and enjoy players like Bo Nix and Tank Bigsby, Seth Williams and Colby Wooden, Roger McCreary and all the other players on the field wearing that uniform and representing your school.

Auburn football can still provide joy if you let it. So open the door, and let ‘em in.

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In today’s musical journey we go back 108 years to the birth of the queen of country comedy and one of CMT’s 40 Greatest Women in Country Music. Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, known professionally as Minnie Pearl, was born on Oct. 25, 1912 in a community just outside Centerville, Tenn., which she always referred to as Grinders Switch because it consisted of one railroad switch. She was the youngest of five daughters born to a lumberman and homemaker. She studied theatre and dance at Belmont and after graduating, began producing and directing a touring theater company throughout the Southeast. She visited civic organizations to promote the show including a stop in Baileytown, Ala., where she met a mountain woman that first inspired the creation of the Minnie Pearl character. After performing in front of executives from WSM radio station, she was invited to appear at the Grand Ole Opry for the first time in 1940, beginning a 51-year relationship with weekly country music stage concert.

Many of the characters Minnie Pearl used in her Southern or hillbilly comedy were based on residents of Centerville including Uncle Nabob, Aunt Ambrosia, Miss Lizzie Tinkum and Brother. She always opened her shows with a signature, “How-dee,” and ended them with, “I love you so much it hurts.” She wore a frilly dress and always had her straw hat with a $1.98 price tag still attached. That hat is on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. She made many T.V. appearances as Pearl including as a regular on Hee Haw from 1969-91, The Match Game and Hollywood Squares. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1992. She was friends with many celebrities inside and outside of country music including Elvis Presley and Dean Martin. She also wrote six books and produced five albums before her death due to a stroke at the age of 83 in 1996.