AUBURN | We’ve reached the stretch run in this unique 10-game, conference-only season, and Auburn is poised to finish fairly well. Maybe better.
The Tigers went into the bye week 4-2 and are heavily favored to stretch that to 5-2 with a game at 2-4 Mississippi State, which managed a 24-17 win against Vanderbilt Saturday.
Jeremy Pruitt may have had his share of success against Gus Malzahn — 8-3 as an assistant with Alabama, Florida State and Georgia, 1-0 as Tennessee’s head coach — but the Volunteers will likely be 2-5 when they come to Jordan-Hare Nov. 21.
The Tigers could be 6-2 going into this year’s version of Amen Corner, which is a lot better than most anybody thought after a 2-2 start that included a blowout loss at Georgia and a defeat at South Carolina.
But this team is resilient, as most Gus Malzahn’s teams have been, and it’s gotten better just as he’s predicted week after week after week.
Just five of 14 SEC teams currently have a winning record. I think six wins with this team would be good. Seven or more would be excellent in the context of this team’s personnel and injury issues it’s had to overcome.
Auburn still has some steps forward it can take this season, and some even bigger steps it will have to take in the offseason to transform into a true championship contender. But I think more people can see the potential now, the talented building blocks on both sides of the ball that just need a little more seasoning and a couple of areas along the line of scrimmage that could use an injection of talent.
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I’m still not all in on Texas A&M, but I’ve got to admit there’s less and less justification for my lack of faith in their chances to play for a championship. The fact is, the Aggies have the best win in the SEC so far, 41-38 over Florida Oct. 10, and would likely clinch a spot in the college football playoffs by winning their remaining four games. TAMU is currently ranked fifth behind Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Clemson. If Alabama and Ohio State win out, they’re almost certainly in. Notre Dame and Clemson are likely to meet again in the ACC Championship game with the winner advancing and the loser probably out, which would leave TAMU for the fourth slot.
Still, there’s four SEC games remaining and TAMU’s path to a 9-1 season won’t be a pushover. They play at Tennessee this Saturday, host Ole Miss and LSU the next two weeks and finish at Auburn.
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I look at Florida’s 44-28 stomping of Georgia as a great example of how offense wins championships now. The Bulldogs are extremely talented on defense across the board, even with their injuries, but it wasn’t close enough to overcome an offense with a quarterback the caliber of Kyle Trask, who is surrounded by quality players at all the key positions.
Georgia, on the other hand, has been exposed at the quarterback position. You can have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t have a standout quarterback to put it all together on offense, you’re not winning the big games, at least not many of them.
Just look at the last six seasons of the college football playoffs. Of the 12 winners in semifinal games, nine scored more than 30 points and five more than 40. Oregon scored 59 in 2014, Georgia 54 in 2017 and LSU 63 in 2019. The winner of four of the six championship games scored more than 40 points.
Offense wins championships, and it starts with a good quarterback, an offensive line that can protect him and receivers that can get open, catch the ball and make plays. Add a quality running game for some balance, and the points and wins are going to accumulate thick and fast.
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In today’s musical journey, we travel back 57 years to the beginning of the most successful music, entertainment and politics magazine of all time. Rolling Stone published its first edition on Nov. 9, 1967, which featured John Lennon on its cover dressed in an army uniform from his film, How I Won the War. It was the first of 30 covers by the Beatles, either by the band or individually. It’s long-running slogan has always been, “All the news that fits.”
Rolling Stone was founded by Jann Wenner and Ralph Gleason in San Francisco during the Summer of Love and the hippie movement centered in Haight-Ashbury. It hit its stride in the 1970’s with its coverage of music and bringing in the iconic Hunter S. Thompson for politics. Many prominent journalists got their start at Rolling Stone including Cameron Crowe, whose screenwriting credits include Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous, Joe Klein, the author of Primary colors, Joe Eszterhas, the screenwriter for Flashdance and Basic Instinct, and punk poet laureate Patti Smith. Tom Wolfe, the author of the Right Stuff and Bonfire of the Vanities, worked for the magazine in the 70s and 80s. Kurt Loder, known for his MTV News updates, was an editor during the 80s. It’s current circulation is over 700,000.
The magazine took its name from a few different sources including the 1950’s blues song Rollin’ Stone, Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone and the band, The Rolling Stones. Dylan’s 1965 song is believed to be the most influential in the naming and it just happens to be ranked No. 1 by the Rolling Stone in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
