AUBURN | Gus Malzahn and his staff really need to dig deep this week. Deep.
If No. 11 Auburn is going to upset No. 6 Georgia, his offense has to be at least reasonably effective. Malzahn can’t afford to do what he’s done in five of his last six matchups in the Deep South’s oldest rivalry — score 13 or less points.
Auburn lost all five of those games with Malzahn’s offense failing to gain 300 yards each time.
Malzahn was brought to Auburn to run this program and to produce a high-powered offense. Give him full credit for handing over the reins to Kevin Steele on defense. That’s been a slam-dunk hire and the Tigers’ have a championship-level defense — no question.
The only question about this year’s team is Malzahn’s offense. It’s certainly been inconsistent and a huge disappointment against the last two quality defenses its faced — Florida and LSU. It’ll face the SEC’s best in the Bulldogs, which lead the conference in scoring, total and rushing defense.
Auburn has an opportunity, a huge opportunity, to earn some quality wins this November and bring some real joy back to this program. It’s up to Malzahn and his offense to get it done, and running headfirst into UGA’s brick wall of a front seven doesn’t seem like a very good plan.
Malzahn has got to find a way to produce some explosive plays, and he’s got to find something that’ll work past AU’s opening drive. If he can do that, and I still think he can, the defense can certainly hold up its end and then some.
This team can still make a special run over the next three weeks. Finishing 10-2 against this big-boy schedule would make this Malzahn’s best team since 2013. He just needs to kickstart that offense to get it done.
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Congrats to LSU for winning the SEC. Yea, yea, I know, still a month to go but they look like a team of destiny right now. Joe Burrow sure looks like a Heisman Trophy winner too, which would be LSU’s second-ever after Billy Cannon won it in 1959.
The division races appear pretty settled with LSU and Georgia likely to meet in Atlanta Dec. 7. The winner — my money is on LSU — is likely headed to the college football playoffs. How it shakes out for the rest of the conference including the possibility of a second SEC team making it into the playoffs will be interesting.
What’s not interesting is CBS and every talking head on ESPN and just about everywhere else fawning over Alabama and “their path to the playoffs” immediately after their 46-41 loss to LSU at home. Alabama’s schedule has been a joke. Their four non-conference opponents — Duke, New Mexico State, Southern Miss and Western Carolina — are a combined 13-24, and they’ve managed to bypass the top two teams in the East. Alabama hasn’t beaten a team that can sniff the top 25 right now, although it will get one final chance at Jordan-Hare Stadium Nov. 30.
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In today’s musical journey we go back 29 years to Nov. 12, 1990 when Garth Brooks’ album No Fences hit No. 1 on the US Country album charts where it spent 23 weeks. It has gone on to sell over 17 million copies in the U.S. and is Brook’s best-selling studio album. The lead single from the album, Friends in Low Places, spent four weeks at No. 1 and won both the ACM and CMA awards for Single of the Year in 1990.
Friends in Low Places was written by songwriters Earl Bud Lee and Dewayne Blackwell in 1989. According to Lee, it was inspired when he was out with friends at a local Nashville tavern and realized he didn’t have any money with him. When asked how he was going to pay for the check, Lee replied, ‘Don’t worry, I have friends in low places. I know the cook.’ Months later the rest of the song came together on paper napkins at a party.
Brooks is the best-selling solo album artist in the U.S. with 148 million domestic units sold, putting him ahead of Elvis Presley. He’s also second only to the Beatles in total album sales. He has been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He’s been married to fellow country music star and Food Network celebrity chef Trisha Yearwood since 2005.
