AUBURN | A fourth consecutive losing season has come to a close and this Auburn coaching staff needs to get to work to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Serious work needs to be done because 5-7 won’t hack it next season. Neither will 7-5. The margin of error has lessened quite a bit for Hugh Freeze.
It has to when you look at the results on the field.
Of Auburn’s seven losses, four of them came at home to average or below average teams.
California finished 6-6 and 14th in the ACC, Arkansas and Vanderbilt 6-6 and tied for 11th in the SEC and Oklahoma 6-6 and 13th in the SEC.
That’s unacceptable, and it has to change immediately. It starts at the top with this coaching staff and its players being held to a higher standard.
There were way too many mistakes starting with serious personnel miscalculations at the quarterback and offensive tackle positions during the offseason, and continuing with a team that wasn’t physically tough enough at the line of scrimmage or mentally tough enough in the critical moments of games.
Good teams establish that toughness during offseason workouts, and spring and preseason practice. Auburn wasn’t a good team. Freeze and his staff have to make changes or it will be an underachieving team again next year, and it will fall on another group to fix it.
A positive step forward will take place Wednesday when Freeze signs one of the nation’s best recruiting classes. There needs to be another big step forward over the next six weeks with key positions that need to be filled in the transfer portal at quarterback and offensive tackle to name a couple that should be at the top of the shopping list.
Auburn needs to be aggressive in the portal. Nobody wants to hear about playing fair or doing things the right way. It’s results that matter.
Increasing the talent level of this program was the most important part of the job Freeze and his staff inherited two years ago. But there are other parts that have to change too.
Freeze must set his expectations higher for Auburn’s program, and he most hold every person on his staff and team to a higher standard. And it needs to start right now.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 55 years to a British band’s stopover for a recording session in Alabama just days before performing at a fateful concert in California. On Dec. 2, 1969, the Rolling Stones began a three-day session at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Ala., where they recorded “Brown Sugar,” “Wild Horses” and “You Gotta Move.” Four days later, on Dec. 6, the Rolling Stones were the closing act at the Altamont Free Concert in Tracy, Calif., which was known for four deaths, a number of injuries and the controversial use of the Hells Angels biker club as security. Also performing at the concert were Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but the Grateful Dead cancelled their set due to the violence that resulted in the death of Meredith Curly Hunter at the hands of a Hells Angel. Hunter, who brandished a gun trying to enter the stage area, was stabbed and beaten to death by Alan Passaro. Passaro was charged with murder bur acquitted by a jury on the grounds of self defense. Three other concertgoers died, two in a hit-and-run and another who drowned in an irrigation canal. It was originally branded as Woodstock West, coming four months after the famous festival in New York, but became more known for the deaths, more than 500 injuries and ending the Summer of Love. The concert was captured on film including the killing of Hunter by filmmakers Albert and David Maysles and used in their 1970 documentary, Gimme Shelter.
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio was formed by four session musicians, which left another Muscle Shoals studio, FAME, in 1969. Barry Beckett, Jimmy Johnson, David Hood and Roger Hawkins were known as the Swampers, which is included in a lyric from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” The Rolling Stones decided to record there during the middle of their U.S. tour, wanting a location that would help them develop a couple of different songs. Mick Jagger wrote “Brown Sugar,” which has a funky sound, and helped Keith Richards finish composing “Wild Horses,” which has roots in country music. “Brown Sugar” became one of the Stones’ eight No. 1 singles on the Billboard 100 while “Wild Horses” only peaked at No. 28 but remains one of the band’s most popular songs, ranging eighth on Spotify, one spot ahead of “Brown Sugar.” A number of legendary artists have recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio including Elton John, Bob Dylan, Cher, Linda Ronstadt, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Boz Scaggs, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Duane Allman, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Glenn Frey, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Alabama, Dire Straits, Eddie Rabbit, the Oak Ridge Boys and George Michael. The original studio was built in a former coffin showroom and was used for 10 years until a larger studio was acquired in 1979 and used for an additional six years. In 2013, work began on restoring the original studio as an historic landmark, which was completed in 2017. It’s available to tour during the day and operates as a working studio at night.
