AUBURN | Auburn is not playing good football right now. It’s 2-4 and Hugh Freeze is 8-11 halfway through his second season.
But things can change quickly in college football.
The same program that is floundering for a fourth consecutive season, could be in the mix for a college football playoff spot by this time next year.
That’s not hyperbole. It’s already happened for plenty of other programs and we’ll see more of it with the playoff expanding from four to 12 teams.
Michigan was 2-4 in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Jim Harbaugh’s sixth at his alma mater. They made the CFP playoffs the next three seasons, losing in the semifinals twice before winning the national championship last season.
Notre Dame was 4-8 in Brian Kelly’s seventh season in 2016 and was in the college football playoffs in 2018 and again in 2020.
Washington was 7-6 in 2015 and made the playoffs the following year.
You don’t believe Auburn can do it?
It was just a decade ago that Auburn made one of the biggest turnarounds in college football history going from 3-9 in 2012 to 12-2 in 2013 with an SEC championship and a close loss in the national championship game.
The reason there should be optimism with the Tigers right now is recruiting. Auburn signed the nation’s No. 8 class last year and many of those players are seeing their playing time and impact increase over the course of the season. AU is currently on track to sign a top five class in 2025 with less than two months to go until Signing Day.
That '25 class got even stronger last week with the addition of Deuce Knight, the nation's No. 2 dual-threat quarterback. That AU is still adding elite talent while struggling on the field is a positive sign that this class can hold together.
It probably won’t be enough to build a championship roster by nest season. But with the right additions from the transfer portal, emphasizing quality over quantity, Auburn could have a roster that can compete in the top half of the SEC.
Finishing in the top four of the SEC or Big Ten probably gets you into the playoffs most years and fifth is a possibility too. Fourth will be automatic every year if the two conference powers move ahead with plans to give more auto bids and expand to 14 teams in 2026.
For that to happen, AU has to hold onto this class and add some more good pieces to it. And it would be a big boost if the team could reach a turning point this season and get back on a winning track.
Despite the outcome against Georgia Saturday, Auburn has shown signs of improvement. It’s not out of the question AU could make a little run on the field the second half of the season.
As we saw this weekend, nobody remaining on AU’s schedule is infallible. In fact some teams that looked like strong playoff contenders just 10 days ago, look quite beatable now.
Auburn just needs to get it together on the field, learn how to win and build a little confidence and momentum.
No doubt it looks bleak now, but that turnaround could be just 12 days away and Auburn could be transformed into a completely different program in just 12 more months.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 86 years to the first-ever recording of a song that has been covered over 5,000 times and was named the song of the 20th Century. On Oct. 7, 1938, Judy Garland recorded “Over The Rainbow” for the movie, The Wizard of Oz. She was just 16 at the time. The song was written by Yip Harburg and composed by Harold Arlen, who often worked together and collaborated on all the music in The Wizard of Oz. A number of talented artists have covered “Over The Rainbow” including Glenn Miller, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patti LaBelle, Willie Nelson, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, Eric Clapton, Olivia Newton-John, Eva Cassidy, Pink and Ariana Grande. Twenty versions have made it on the Billboard charts with Katharine McPhee’s 2006 version reaching the highest at No. 12 on the Billboard 100 after she finished second on American Idol. Gene Wilder’s family played a version by Ella Fitzgerald as he passed away in 2016. “Over The Rainbow” won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1981 and the National Recording Registry in 2017.
Frances Ethel Gumm was born in Grand Rapids, Minn., in 1922. Both her parents were involved in the theatre. She sang for the first time in her family’s theater at age two and would often perform with her two older sisters. The family moved to Lancaster, Calif., in 1926 and purchased another theatre. The Gumm sisters continued to perform together, making their film debut in 1929 and changing their name to the Garland sisters in 1934. Frances changed her first name to Judy the following year. She signed with MGM in 1935 and she was paired with Mickey Rooney for many of her early films. Garland received one of only 12 Academy Juvenile Awards, which was only available through 1961, for The Wizard of Oz. She appeared in 34 feature films including Meet Me in St. Louis, which included another of her hit songs, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Garland won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in 1954’s A Star in Born. She also appeared in several T.V. specials and hosted her own show from 1963-64. Her 1961 live album, Judy at Carnegie Hall, was a smash hit spending 13 weeks atop the Billboard 200 album chart and earning Garland a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. She struggled with substance abuse and financial problems throughout her life and passed away at age 47 in 1969 due to an accidental overdose of barbiturates. Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 and is ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest female screen legend of the classic Hollywood era. One of her daughters, Liza Minnelli, has won an Academy Award, Emmy Award and two Tony Awards.
