AUBURN | Getting off to a good start is important for every team in every season.
But for Auburn in 2022, it’s vitally important and will go a long way in determining the makeup of the football program going forward.
A 5-0 start would bring a tremendous amount of confidence and momentum and wash away a lot of the doubt and hand-wringing over Bryan Harsin’s tenure as the Tigers’ head coach.
It could also provide an impetus to some of AU’s top recruiting targets, which have been stoked with the same doubts from opposing coaches over the last several months.
Yes, a 5-0 start is exactly what this program needs and it’s certainly doable. Every one of Auburn’s first five opponents are beatable and they’ll all play at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The next seven, four of which are on the road, is an entirely different story.
Barring a monumental upset, the Tigers should win the opening two games against Mercer and San Jose State. The next three — Penn State, Missouri and LSU — will certainly be more competitive.
By the night of Oct. 1, we’ll know a good deal about where Auburn stands and the future of Harsin’t program.
Game six is a tough one, at Georgia, where AU hasn’t won since 2005 and has lost the the last seven contests in Athens by an average margin of 20.1 points.
Let’s say the fortunes stay the same at Georgia and at Alabama, where it’s lost five consecutive games by an average margin of 27.6 points, AU is able to beat Western Kentucky and splits the remaining games at home against Arkansas and Texas A&M and on the road at Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
That would work out to an 8-4 regular season. Not great by any means but a definite improvement over last season and better than most preseason expectations.
But a 3-2 start instead of 5-0, well that could lead to another six or seven-win season or worse, which would create more turmoil within the program.
And that turmoil would only make it tougher for this staff to recruit for the 2023 class and beyond.
It’s a losing cycle that needs to stop and one AU can put the brakes on with a perfect start in Jordan-Hare.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 35 years to the day one of the Kings of Country Music had one of his biggest hits from a song that has a cover version that has appeared in six movies, two T.V. shows and a popular video game. On July 11, 1987, George Strait’s All My Ex’s Live in Texas hit No. 1 on the U.S. Hot Country charts. It was written Sanger D. Shafer and his wife Linda. Shafer recorded his own version that was used in the movie Road House, the T.V. show Ash vs. Evil Dead and the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The song details a string of ex-girlfriends in different cities in Texas such as Texarkana, Abilene and Galveston, and that’s why the author currently hangs his hat in Tennessee. Shafer, who moved to Nashville, said in an interview before his death that the song is “mostly true” with the names and towns changed. All My Ex’s Live in Texas was the 11th consecutive No. 1 hit for Strait and earned him a Grammy nomination.
George Harvey Strait was born in 1952 on a cattle farm in Potent, Texas. His parents divorced with him and his brother living with his dad and his sister with his mother. He played on a rock band in high school but eventually started shifting to more country music. He eloped with his high school sweetheart, Norma, and joined the Army in 1971. They remain married today. He joined the Ace in the Hole Band in the 1970’s and played at small saloons in Texas for about a decade, unable to attract much attention or earn a recording contract. He nearly quit in 1980 before Norma convinced him to give it one more year and it was in February of 1981 that he finally signed a contract with MCA. He had a couple of early hits but his second album in 1982 included his first No. 1 and one of his signature songs, Amarillo by Morning. Some of his other signature songs include Ocean Front Property, The Chair, Check Yes or No and Carrying You Love with Me. He’s gone on to produce 60 No. 1 hits, the most by any artist in any genre, and his 69 million albums sold ranks 12th all-time in the U.S. He’s third to only Elvis and the Beatles for the most-ever gold and platinum albums. He has won 22 CMA Awards and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2006. Strait is a cousin of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
