AUBURN | I’ve seen a lot of worthless and inane moves in my 20 years covering college sports but I can’t think of many that compare to the idiocy of the so-called alliance between the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12.
It comes just weeks after the SEC officially welcomed Oklahoma and Texas into its ranks to expand from 14 to 16 teams. That any of the other three conferences would have sold their souls for an opportunity to bring the two Big 12 teams into their ranks seems lost in their posturing.
One of the biggest takeaways from the announcement was that the leaders of the alliance may slow down the implementation of the 12-team playoff. Three SEC teams have made eight appearances in the seven years of the playoffs. Same with the ACC. The Big Ten has had five and the Pac-12 just two.
Why would the leadership in the Big Ten and especially Pac-12 want to delay the opportunity for more playoff spots? It’s certainly not going to get any easier to get their teams in a four-team tourney with Oklahoma and Texas in the SEC.
Another key part of the alliance is playing non-conference games against each other. The day after the press conference, LSU and USC announced they will open the 2024 season against each other in Las Vegas.
Another fail.
It’s an alliance born out of bitter jealousy with no actual signed agreements or plans. It seeks to reign in the power of the SEC while only enhancing it with its ineptitude.
ESPN and the SEC run college football right now. Whether that’s a net positive for the future of college football is certainly up for debate, but it is what it is, and it’s not the alliance.
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Welcome to game week.
In five short days Auburn will play in Jordan-Hare Stadium for the first time since a loss to Texas A&M Dec. 5. A lot has changed since then.
A lot.
That was certainly evident this past Saturday as Auburn held the first open fall practice I can recall since probably 2007 or 08. I don’t have any huge takeaways from the event other than Auburn looked well organized as a whole and the first-team defense performed very well, exactly like we’ve reported throughout fall drills.
Offensively, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that we haven’t really seen what this year’s group should excel at, and that’s lining up and playing smash-mouth football with Tank Bigsby. They were blowing the whistle with one-hand touch Saturday. Nobody in the SEC is bringing down Tank with one hand.
The offensive line appears to still be a work in progress but they’ve got two warm-up games to build a foundation before the first big test at Penn State Sept. 18.
I like that the three receivers with the first group Saturday were senior Shedrick Jackson, senior transfer Demetris Robertson and sophomore Ja’Varrius Johnson.
Jackson, who has 10 career catches, has been slowed by injuries the last four years including one that kept him out of spring. Robertson, the No. 8 overall player in the 2016 class, is at his third school as he tries to end his college career on a high note. The undersized Johnson, who basically missed the first two years of his college career with injuries, has been Auburn’s most reliable pass catcher since the spring.
It’s just good to have football back in what should be a close to capacity Jordan-Hare for most of the season. Yes, it’s another tough schedule — what’s new — but if the Tigers can win the ones their supposed to and find a way to win a couple their not, Bryan Harsin’s first season will be a success.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 44 years to a hit song making it to No. 1 on the country chart on the way to becoming a huge crossover hit and one of the 10 most-performed songs of the 20th century. On Aug. 31, 1977, Crystal Gayle’s Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue started a four-week run atop the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs. Three months later it peaked at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Gayle has gone on to win a Grammy award, five Academy of Country Music awards and two Country Music Association awards. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2017.
Brenda Gail Webb was born in 1951 as the youngest of eight children in Paintsville, Ky., to a coal miner and nurse’s aid. Two of her two older sisters, Loretta Lynn and Peggy Sue, are also successful country music artists. Gayle started singing at a very early age including church and as a backup singer in Lynn’s band. She performed at the Grand Ole Opry for the first time at age 16 as a replacement for Lynn, who was ill at the time. She signed with Decca after graduating from high school in 1970 and the label, which also represented Brenda Lee, insisted she change her name. Loretta helped choose her stage name after driving past a Krystal restaurant saying, ‘Crystals are bright and shiny like you.’ Her career never took off at Decca, which wanted another Loretta. Gayle moved to United Artists in 1974 and had her first top 10 hit, Wrong Road Again, the following year. Her big breakout came with Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue in ’77 and she’s had a number of other hits since including 78’s Talking in Your Sleep, 79’s Half the Way and 1982’s duet with Eddie Rabbitt, You and I.
Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue was written by Richard Leigh for Shirley Bassey but when producer Allen Reynolds heard it, he made sure it went to Gayle first. She recorded the song in one take on Oct. 27, 1976. Gayle, who has blue eyes, said Leigh originally wrote the song because his dog had one brown eye and one blue one. The song spent three weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 at the end of 1977 but couldn’t knock Debby Boone’s You Light Up My Life out of the top spot. The song won Gayle a Grammy for Best Female Country Performance in 1978 and the album it was included on, We Must Believe in Magic, was certified platinum in 1978, the first-ever by a female country artist. Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue remains Gayle's signature song and is most associated with her career along with her nearly floor-length hair.
