BMatt’s Monday musings
AUBURN | After securing a top 10 recruiting class in 2024, Hugh Freeze set the top five as his goal for 2025.
Freeze and Auburn took a big step toward achieving that goal Friday in flipping the nation’s No. 3 running back, Alvin Henderson, from Penn State.
The Tigers initially moved up to No. 5 in the Rivals team rankings after A-Train’s commitment, and currently sit seventh after a big weekend of official visits and commitments nationwide.
Auburn will certainly have to take some more big steps and land more highly-rated prospects to secure that top five class, but anyone that’s watched Freeze and his staff’s work on the recruiting trail over the past 19 months would be foolish to doubt them.
The impact of a top five class shouldn’t be underrated.
Auburn’s had one top five class in the 23 years of the Rivals rankings, which came in 2010. That class was ranked No. 4 and included Cam Newton, who led Auburn to the 2010 national championship.
One of the lowest-ranked players in that class was a defensive back from Birmingham. Three years later, Chris Davis would make one of the greatest plays in college football history returning a missed field goal 109 yards for a game-winning touchdown in the Iron Bowl, known as a Kick Six, and lead AU to an SEC Championship and oh so close to another national title.
That said, just one top five class doesn’t guarantee anything. In the last five years, Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State have five top five classes, and Texas and LSU have three. Those schools have accounted for four of the last five national champions.
Michigan is the outlier with its highest finish being ninth in 2022.
So it pays big-time to stack top five classes on top of top five classes. All of those teams are at least in the mix for a championship every year.
But the Wolverines showed that a well-coached team with a veteran quarterback along with strong work in the transfer portal is another path to a championship.
Maybe not year on year sustained success, but a national championship nonetheless.
With the portal continuing and the playoffs expanding to 12 teams, I imagine those outliers will become a little more common, but there’s no better way to compete for and win championship than to secure top five classes.
Auburn could sign its first top five class in 15 years in December coming off the nation’s No. 8 class in 2024.
The Tigers aren’t there yet, but this is the way. This is the path to becoming annual championship contenders.
Step by step, Freeze is bringing Auburn back to the top.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 21 years to the release of a debut solo album that became a smashing success from a queen bey that was destined for superstardom. On June 24, 2003, Beyoncé released Dangerously in Love, which debuted atop the Billboard 200 album chart, included two No. 1 hits on the Billboard 100 and won five Grammy Awards, which tied for the most won by a woman at a single Grammy Awards ceremony. Released six weeks before the album, “Crazy in Love,” which features Jay-Z, became Beyoncé’s first solo No. 1 single and won Grammy’s for Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. It spent eight weeks atop the Billboard 100. It was followed by “Baby Boy,” which spent nine weeks at No. 1. The album had two more top five hits in “Me, Myself and I” and “Naughty Girl.” Beyoncé co-wrote nearly all 15 songs on the album and took an active role in the production. “Crazy in Love” is considered Beyoncé’s signature song and was ranked No. 16 by Rolling Stone on its list of 500 greatest songs of all time. In 2018, Rolling Stone also ranked it as the greatest song of the 21st century so far.
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born in Houston, Texas in 1981 to a salon owner mother and sales manager father. Her mother, Tina, comes from a long line of French-speaking Louisiana Creoles and is a direct descendant of a couple of prominent Acadian military officers. Beyoncé beat out 15- and 16-year olds to win a school talent show at age seven and attended a magnet music elementary school and then a high school for performing arts in Houston. She joined a group called Girl’s Time in 1989, which eventually signed with Columbia Records and changed its name to Destiny’s Child in 1996. They had their first hit single, “No, No, No,” in 1997 and first No. 1 single, “Say My Name,” in 1999. More No. 1’s came with 1999’s “Bills, Bills, Bills,” 2000’s “Independent Women Part I” and 2001’s “Bootylicious.” Destiny’s Child released four albums before a two-year hiatus to pursue solo career and a final album in 2004. They have reunited several times including the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show. As a solo artist, Beyoncé has released eight studio albums, had 24 top 10 hits and nine No. 1 singles including 2006’s “Irreplaceable,” 2008’s “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It),” 2017’s “Perfect” and, most recently, 2024’s “Texas Hold ‘Em.” She has sold more than 200 million records, which ranks among the top 12 artists of all time, won a record 32 Grammy’s and starred in more than a dozen films. Beyoncé married Jay-Z in 2008 and the pair have an estimated net worth of nearly $4 billion.