BMatt’s Monday musings

AUBURN | Auburn hosted close to 200 recruits for its Junior Day.

There was plenty of quality too with a number of Rivals100 and Rivals250 players along with several current SEC and Power 5 commitments.

It comes on the heels of Hugh Freeze and his staff spending 16 consecutive days on the road recruiting. That relentless effort paid off big-time with Saturday’s turnout.

Auburn’s football program desperately needed this level of commitment to recruiting from its head coach and finally found its talisman in Freeze.

It’s so refreshing to witness and quite a contrast to last year’s first Junior Day, which was held Jan. 29 and included just 13 visitors.

The staff had tried to throw together a last-minute Junior Day a week earlier for a home basketball game against Kentucky but couldn’t get anyone to show up.

The lack of planning, execution and effort is really beyond pathetic when you look back at it now.

It was embarrassingly poor leadership from Bryan Harsin.

His recruiting efforts in just over 22 months in charge of Auburn were nothing short of a dereliction of duty. He didn’t deserve a penny of his $15.3 million buyout, but that’s not a fight AU was going to win regardless.

That Auburn’s recruiting immediately improved the moment Harsin exited the building is all you need to know about his tenure.

The Tigers hosted 27 high school prospects during the crucial official visit period last May and June. Only one of those players, running back Jeremiah Cobb, committed and will sign with Auburn.

One of 27.

Shortly after Harsin was fired and before Freeze was brought in, Cadillac Williams and AU’s remaining staff managed to flip defensive lineman Darron Reed from LSU.

Two of 27.

Freeze arrived Nov. 28 and was key in AU flipping center Connor Lew from Miami and edge Keldric Faulk from Florida State.

Four of 27.

Now, that’s still not a good return on your official visitors but it’s four times better than what Harsin was going to accomplish. And who knows if Cobb would have stuck with his commitment if that clown-show had been allowed an additional year.

But that’s the past. It’s over. There’s a new dawn in Auburn with Freeze at the helm.

He’s restocked AU’s roster with 21 new players this month and he’s set his staff on the path to even bigger returns in the 2024 class.

Auburn is a force in recruiting for the first time in more than a decade and it’s a sight to behold.

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So what comes next? A bit of a break in recruiting.

The dead period begins today and lasts through the end of February. You can still call, text and DM recruits, but face-to-face contact is prohibited for the next 30 days.

Prospect visits and Junior Days will return March 1 and coaches will be eligible to get back on the road starting April 15, which is a week after A-Day.

The dead period couldn’t come at a better time for most of this staff who launched into recruiting immediately after the end of the season and haven’t slowed down since.

It’s non-stop now with the transfer portal and December signing period.

Now they’ll have a month to better assess their needs, top targets and adjust their recruiting boards as needed.

February will also be a great month for team building. All that time devoted to recruiting over the last couple of months can be poured into winter workouts and the more than 70 players scheduled to go through spring practice.

There might even be some well-earned time off for the staff. Perhaps Freeze can even get a round or two in on the links.

***

In today’s musical journey, we go back 51 years to the worst massacre in Northern Ireland history, which spawned a number of songs, poems, plays, movies, documentaries and paintings. On Jan. 30, 1972, British soldiers shot 26 unarmed protesters in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland in what is called Bloody Sunday or the Bogside Massacre. Thirteen people died on Bloody Sunday with a 14th passing away four months later. Just two days later, Paul McCartney recorded the song, “Give Ireland Back to the Irish,” which was banned by the BBC at the time. John Lennon recorded two songs in 1972, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “The Luck of the Irish,” which were inspired by the incident. Other songs include Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” Roy Harper’s “All Ireland,” and the most famous, U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” which includes the lines: There’s many lost, but tell me who has won? The trenches dug within our hearts. And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart.

The Catholics were protesting British rule, especially a new law that allowed mass arrests and internment without trial. The morning of the march, a British parachute regiment was sent in to stop the protests. As the march progressed, the paratroopers were ordered to arrest the protesters. Many were shot from behind trying to escape, others aiding the wounded. The murdered included seven teenagers. The original investigation cleared the soldiers of any wrongdoing. A second investigation that began in 1998 and lasted 12 years found the killings unjustified, that all the victims were unarmed and that the soldiers lied to coverup their crimes. Bloody Sunday inflamed Catholic and Northern Ireland hostilities during the Troubles. More than 3,500 people were killed during the 30-year conflict. The Good Friday Agreement, which was signed in 1998, ended the conflict and restored self-government to Northern Ireland.