AUBURN | Will it be a flip-tastic Big Cat this weekend?
With Hugh Freeze at the helm you can pretty much count on it.
Going into the start of his second season at Auburn, Freeze has a well-earned reputation of flipping elite prospects from other top programs.
It started shortly after he arrived in Auburn at the end of November in 2022, flipping a half-dozen standouts in just a few weeks including defensive end Keldric Faulk from Florida State, cornerback Kayin Lee from Ohio State, center Connor Lew from Miami, defensive lineman Darron Reed from LSU, offensive lineman Izavion Miller from Ole Miss and safety Sylvester Smith from Tennessee.
Faulk, Lee and Lew all started as true freshmen and will be full-time starters this fall. Miller was AU’s starting right tackle last season and is on track to be the same this fall.
Reed and Smith will both compete for a spot in the playing rotation and perhaps more during preseason drills.
The flips continued with Freeze’s first full class last year, taking linebacker Demarcus Riddick from Georgia, wide receiver Cam Coleman from Texas A&M and wide receiver Perry Thompson from Alabama last summer.
That Thompson flip came during Big Cat and included Freeze being tossed into a pool.
Later that fall, he snagged both outside linebacker Jamonta Waller and defensive lineman Amaris Williams from Florida.
All five are expected to make an impact as true freshmen this fall while Coleman came out of spring as a likely starter.
Already in the 2025 class, Freeze has flipped the nation’s No. 3 running back, Alvin Henderson, from Penn State, with more potentially coming this weekend.
That’s what happens when you have a relentless recruiter heading your program.
There’s been so many times over the last decade-plus that Auburn’s been on the other side. Of course, flips happen to every school, but under the previous couple of head coaches, there was hardly ever an answer.
Now, it’s Freeze and Auburn that other programs fear. And if they do get one over on AU? Well, they better watch their backs.
That brings us to this Saturday and what could be one of the most impressive groups of Big Cat visitors in its 15 years of existence. Among that group should be a number committed to other schools.
And don’t be surprised if a couple, maybe more, walk out of there committed to Auburn.
The Tigers don’t have an elite quarterback or wide receiver committed in its 2025 class. I think that changes Saturday or shortly thereafter.
More Freeze flips are coming. He better get those swimming trunks ready.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 51 years to the day a talented singer-songwriter had his first No. 1 single just a couple of months before his tragic death. On July 21, 1973, Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” rose to the top of the Billboard 100 where it stayed for two weeks. The song, which included the verse, “meaner than a junkyard dog,” was based on one of Croce’s friends in the Army who got in trouble after going AWOL. It’s also know for being only the second-ever No. 1 song, at the time, to include a curse word, which comes from the verse, “The baddest man in the whole damned town.” “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” also hit No. 1 in Canada and was the No. 2 song in the U.S. for the year of 1973. Frank Sinatra recorded a cover version in 1974.
James Joseph Croce was born in 1943 in South Philadelphia to parents that were recent Italian immigrants. He graduated from Villanova in 1965 and it was during college that his interest in music blossomed. He was a member of two campus singing groups, a student disc jockey and formed bands that performed at fraternity parties and coffee shops. He released his first album in 1966, financing it with a $500 wedding gift from his parents. Croce’s wife, Ingrid Jacobson, was also a songwriter and musician. They often performed together and released an album together in 1969. Croce worked as a truck driver and construction worker to support his family while striving to become a successful musician. He was able to secure a deal with ABC Records in 1972 and quickly produced his breakout album, You Don’t Mess Around with Jim, which included three hit songs, “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)” and “Time in a Bottle.” It earned him several T.V. appearances including The Tonight Show and American Bandstand, and an international tour. He released a fourth album, Life and Times, in January of 1973, which included “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” and finished recording a fifth, I Got a Name, just days before his untimely death.
On Sept. 20, the night before his next single, “I Got a Name,” was scheduled to be released, Croce played a concert at Northwestern State in Natchitoches, La. The 30-year old boarded a Beechcraft E18S with five others included his bandmate, Maury Muehleisen, and all were killed after the plane hit a tree shortly after takeoff. An NTSB investigation determined pilot error and heavy fog as the causes. Croce was buried in Haym Salomon Memorial Park in Frazer, Penn. “I Got a Name” became a top 10 hit in November and then “Time in a Bottle” became Croce’s second No. 1 four days after Christmas. Another single released posthumously, “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In a Song,” became a top 10 hit in April of 1974. In a letter to Ingrid, which arrived after his death, Croce wrote that he wanted to quit music and spend the rest of his life writing short stories and movie scripts. He was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1990.
