BMatt’s Monday musings

AUBURN | I’ve covered some bad Auburn teams in my career.

The 2008 team that finished 5-7 and ended the Tommy Tuberville era, was a mess on offense due to some talent deficits and the hire of coordinator Tony Franklin, who was a bad fit from the start.

I’ve never seen a team collapse like Auburn did in 2012, finishing 3-9 and 0-8 in the SEC. That’s the worst team I’ve covered by far.

I still struggle to fully define such a precipitous fall just two years after winning a national championship, but a lack of discipline within the program and a portion of the players throwing in the towel by midseason certainly stood out.

The last three seasons have been rough, mostly due to recruiting and talent issues, but I wouldn’t call any of those teams bad.

The book on 2024 remains incomplete, but I think this year’s team is better than all of the above.

The record, however, may not reflect that because of a poor start and the remaining schedule this team faces including back-to-back road games against top 10 teams the next two weeks and finishing at No. 1 Alabama.

Auburn already has three losses and will be heavy underdogs in all three of those road games. It’s going to take a major turnaround to avoid a fourth consecutive losing season.

But instead of focusing on the negatives this week and what’s going wrong on the field, I want to give this team and these players credit for competing.

There’s absolutely no quit in this bunch, and it was clear from the way they got after Oklahoma Saturday and their reaction after the devastating loss that the players are invested and care about this program and each other.

Because of that and because of the noticeably strong leadership on this team, I think they’re going to keep competing and I think there’s going to be opportunities to win a game or games that nobody is expecting.

This coaching staff isn’t throwing in the towel, these players are still competing and the Auburn fans are still showing up and doing their part under circumstances that a lot of fanbases would have already bailed on.

There’s plenty that needs to change or get better in Auburn’s football program. I can’t promise it’s going to get done, but as long as these players are giving their all, I know the alumni and supporters will do the same.

That’s just part of what makes Auburn special, even in the toughest of times.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 46 years to the day a band had their first and only No. 1 hit on the Billboard 100 before becoming a hit country band five years later. On Sept. 30, 1978, Exile’s “Kiss You All Over” spent the first of four weeks atop the pop charts in the U.S. It was the group’s only hit single until it shifted to country and had a string of 10 No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot Country chart from 1983-87. “Kiss You All Over” was written by the songwriting duo of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn. The single came from Exile’s third album, Mixed Emotions. The band had struggled to gain traction until Chapman listened to their demo tape and flew from Los Angeles to Kentucky and first watched them perform at an apartment complex before agreeing to work with them. Chapman was inspired by Barry White’s “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me” and the song is a mix of soft rock and disco. “Kiss You All Over” also reached No. 1 in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and peaked at No. 6 in the UK.

Exile formed in Richmond, Kentucky in 1963 by a group of students at Madison High School. It consisted of vocalist and lead guitarist J.P Pennington, vocalist and guitarist Les Taylor, bass guitarist Sonny LeMaire, keyboardist Marlon Hargis and drummer Steve Goetzman. The band went under a couple of name changes before settling on the Exiles, which was inspired by the exile of Cubans to the U.S. during the Cuban Revolution. It was shortened to Exile in 1973. The band got an early break touring with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars in the late 1960’s. They signed with Wooden Nickel Records in 1972 and recorded two unsuccessful albums before being dropped by the label the following year. After “Kiss You All Over” was recorded under the direction of Chapman, he convinced Curb Records to sign the band and promote the song and Warner Bros. Records to handle distribution. The band made four albums under Curb/WB but struggled to produce another hit. After being dropped by their label in 1981, Exile decided to shift to country and began by rehearsing covers of songs by George Jones and Merle Haggard and playing in a Nashville club called the Stockyard. They signed with Epic Records in 1983 and immediately had two No. 1 hits in “Woke Up in Love” and “I Don’t Want to Be a Memory.” Their second country album had three No. 1’s in “Give Me One More Chance,” “Crazy for Your Love” and “She’s a Miracle,” and their third album four more in “Hang On to Your Heart,” “I Could Get Used to You,” “It’ll Be Me” and “She’s Too Good to Be True.” Their final No. 1 came with 1987’s “I Can’t Get Close Enough,” but Taylor and Pennington would leave over the next couple of years and the band would official dissolved in 1995. They reunited in 2005 and remain active today, releasing an album in 2023.