AUBURN | Do you remember Nov. 12, 2010?
Yes, things were going well on the football field at the time. It was the eve of the Georgia game at Jordan-Hare Stadium, which would end in a 49-31 win.
But the night before was also the opening of Auburn Arena. The Tigers lost to UNC Asheville in front of a sellout crowd of 9,121. They lost again to Samford and again to Campbell before finally winning for the first time against Middle Tennessee in front of 4,824 fans.
And so it went during the Tony Barbee era as the attendance slipped from an average of 6,324 his first season to 5,823 by his final year in 2013-14.
Then Bruce Pearl arrived and nothing has been the same since.
The recruiting, development, coaching, wins — have all taken big steps forward. And Auburn Arena has become one of the best home courts in college basketball.
The Tigers have won 37 consecutive non-conference games at Auburn Arena stretching back to 2016 and Pearl has an incredible 46-3 record in home non-conference games.
In four seasons under Barbee, AU was 42-30 at home. In his seventh season at Auburn, Pearl is 81-29.
That takes me to last Saturday. It’s the weekend before the start of final exams and there are key college football conference championship games on throughout the day.
Still, for the Tigers' game against Yale, Auburn Arena was packed to full capacity once again. This is Auburn basketball in 2021 and there’s nobody than can better vocalize the excitement around the program than Pearl did wearing a Santa hat in his postgame press conference.
“It's 1 o'clock in the afternoon in Auburn, Alabama, and this place was lit,” said Pearl after a decisive 86-64 win. “Our students in The Jungle, they're on fire. I talked to a coach from Yale before the game, and he said 'I was at the gymnastics meet last night, it's unbelievable.' I told him, 'Man, this is Auburn, I'll tell you right now. They love you and support you.' That makes a huge difference.”
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When I look at Houston, which is 11-2 and ranked No. 20 in the country, the first question I have is how the heck are they playing in the Birmingham Bowl.
The only losses the Cougars had this season were to Texas Tech to open the season and playoff-bound Cincinnati in the AAC championship game. They won 11 consecutive games in between and are the second-best team in the AAC behind the 4th-ranked Bearcats.
Then I looked and at the AAC bowl tie-ins and, well, the other teams are playing in the Fenway Bowl, Gasparilla Bowl, Military Bowl and Hawaii Bowl. Not the greatest lineup.
I was also surprised to see 6-6 Auburn open as a 3-point favorite. Seriously?
I expect Houston will be pretty fired up to play in this game and get a chance to knock off an SEC team. They’re also pretty talented.
Auburn’s going to have to play one of its better games of the season to avoid finishing with a losing record. The Tigers will need to take full advantage of those two weeks of bowl practice and come into the Dec. 28th matchup a better team than the one that finished the season with four consecutive losses.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 44 years to the release of a live album that contained all original songs for the first time from a major rock and roll artist. On Dec. 6, 1977, Jackson Brown released Running on Empty, which included 10 new songs that were recorded during live concerts, on tour buses and even in hotel rooms. The album peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard charts in 1978 and stayed on there for 65 weeks. It included two top 20 hits and was nominated for two Grammy Awards.
Clyde Jackson Brown was born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1948 where his father, a Stars and Stripes writer, was stationed. The family moved to Los Angeles a few years later and Brown got his start singing folk music in local establishments like the Troubador Club and Ash Grove. He joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band after graduating high school in 1966 but remained with the group for just a few months before moving to New York and writing about music while also performing in Greenwich Village. Back in L.A. by 1968, Brown continued to perform and wrote songs that were recorded by the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Joan Baez and Gregg Allman. He released the first of 15 albums in 1972, the self-titled Jackson Brown, which included the hit song, Doctor My Eyes. He also co-wrote Take It Easy with Glenn Frey for the Eagles in 72. He’s had a number of other hits including 1980’s Somebody’s Baby, which was featured in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and 1983’s Tender is the Night. Brown was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2008.
Brown conceived of the idea for the Running on Empty album about life on the road recorded by a group of touring musicians where they spend the most of their time. The Beatles actually tried to do a similar concept album with Let it Be, but disagreement among the foursome pushed them into the studio. The hit song from the album, also titled Running on Empty, was written by Brown about driving to the studio each day, often with his gas tank on empty. It hit No. 11 on the Billboard 100 and is listed No. 496 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song was featured in Forrest Gump and along with Doctor My Eyes and Somebody’s Baby is a staple of classic rock stations.
