BMatt’s Monday musings

AUBURN | One of the most important factors for Auburn recruiting has always been getting the prospects on campus.

Auburn as a University and athletic department sells itself. That’s been the case for as long as I can remember.

Some coaches have been good at that, others average. The previous guy was flat-out awful.

But times, they are a-changin'.

Hugh Freeze and his staff excel at it. It’s a 10 out of 10, and that’s no exaggeration.

It seems like everywhere I've turned over the last two weeks, there’s been a four- or five-star just hanging out.

This Sunday is another prime example. Blake Woodby, the nation’s No. 4 cornerback, was in Auburn for an unofficial visit just a week after his official.

Woodby is from Baltimore, Md., nearly 700 miles away.

Thursday, the nation’s No. 1 overall prospect, quarterback Julian Lewis, was in Auburn for a camp. He’ll be back for an official visit next weekend.

Last weekend, AU hosted a five-star, three more top 100 players and three four-stars for official visits. This weekend included the nation’s No. 1 strongside defensive end, one more top 100 player and five more four-stars.

This is the new normal under Freeze.

And it’s an eye-opener just watching him work a camp.

One minute, Freeze is hosting a group of highly-rated prospects on his porch overlooking the practice fields and the next he’s chatting up some parents in the indoor practice facility.

He’s like the Energizer bunny.

Freeze doesn’t just own the room. He owns the entire Woltosz football complex.

And it’s not just his presence, it’s his determination and positive attitude and how it trickles down to everyone on his staff.

Travis Smith Jr., a four-star wide receiver from Westlake in Atlanta, Ga., summed it up quite well following his official visit this weekend.

“Sometimes you get a good vibe and sometimes you don’t. This one was great,” he said.

Yeah, there’s plenty of great vibes around the Auburn football program right now, especially when it comes to recruiting.

Heck, the entire athletic department has been vibing pretty good over the last couple of weeks with a men’s golf national championship followed by a men’s track runner-up finish at the outdoor championships.

Carry on those good, good, good vibes through Big Cat, the season and Signing Day, and next offseason will be filled with even more top 100 visitors and a lot of chatter about competing for championships once again.

*** Monday musings is brought to you by Uncle Keith's Red Sauce. I was a customer before bringing them on as a sponsor and I was hooked after the very first taste. It's available in original and hot and can be found in Publix throughout the state of Alabama along with select Piggly Wiggly's, Renfroe's, the Kroger's in Auburn/Opelika and on-line. Uncle Keith's Red Sauce was born right here in the state of Alabama. ***

In today’s musical journey, we go back 17 years to the day the T.V. show that kickstarted the Second Golden Age of Television closed with one of the greatest songs from the 1980’s era of Arena Rock. On June 10, 2007, the series-finale of The Sopranos ended with Tony Soprano and his family meeting at a diner. He plays “Don’t Stop Believin’” on a mini jukebox at his table as his wife, Carmela walks in. A man wearing a member’s only jacket, who entered the diner in front of A.J., gets up and walks to the bathroom as Meadow finally gets her car parallel parked. The scene goes black when the bell rings as Meadow opens the door on the line, “Don’t stop.” The ambiguous ending brought much speculation on the fate of Tony Soprano. One theory has the man in the jacket coming out of the bathroom to whack Tony in a callback to 1972’s Godfather when Michael Corleone went to the bathroom to retrieve a gun he used to kill Virgil Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey. Journey lead singer Steve Perry, who co-wrote the “Don’t Stop Believin’” with keyboardist Jonathan Cain and lead guitarist Neal Schon, was concerned it might be used during a gory scene at the end of the show so he insisted that Sopranos creator David Chase tell him the ending before permission was granted to use it just three days before it aired. Originally released in 1981, “Don’t Stop Believin,” peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 100. After being included in the 2003 movie, Monsters, and the Sopranos four years later, it became the best-selling digital song from the 20th century with over seven million downloads. In 2009, the T.V. show Glee covered the song and that version peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 100.

Journey was formed in 1973 in San Francisco by Schon and lead vocalist/keyboardist Greg Rolie, two former members of Santana, along with bass guitarist Ross Valory and rhythm guitarist George Tickner. Drummer Aynsley Dunbar joined up soon afterwards to make up the original group. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1975 and two more albums came out over the next two years to little acclaim. Big changes came in 1977 when the band hired Steve Perry as lead vocalist and changed their style from jazz fusion to a more rock sound. Their fourth album, Infinity, included their first minor hit song, “Wheel in the Sky,” which peaked at No. 57 on the Billboard 100, and the fifth album, 1979’s Evolution, included their first top 20 hit, “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” Their sixth album, 1980’s Departure, had another hit single in “Any Way You Want It.” Rolie was replaced by Cain in 1980 and he contributed to the band’s most successful album, 1981’s Escape, which included three hit singles: “Who’s Crying Now,” Open Arms” and “Don’t Stop Believin’.” The next album, 1982’s Frontiers, had several more hits in “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” “Faithfully,” “Send Her My Love” and “After the Fall.” The band released a final album in 1986 before breaking up in 1987 with most of the members pursuing solo careers or joining new bands. The band reunited for a new album in 1996 but Perry decided to leave again due to health issues. The band hired Steve Augeri to replace Perry in 1997 and continued to tour and record albums, replacing Augen with Arnel Pineda in 2007. Pineda was the frontman of a Journey cover band in the Philippines. Journey has sold over 100 million albums worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. Perry is still involved in music, most recently providing backing vocals and performing a duet with Dolly Parton on her 2023 album, Rockstar.

Chase worked as a staff writer or producer for a number of T.V. shows over a 20-year span including The Rockford Files and Northern Exposure. He first envisioned The Sopranos as a movie before a talk with his manager convinced him to develop it into a T.V. series. Fox, CBS and NBC all rejected the show after reviewing the script before HBO financed a pilot and eventually approved a 13-episode first season. Chase, who grew up in New Jersey, loosely based the Sopranos on a couple of New Jersey crime families. He also drew from his own family, modeling Tony’s mother, Livia, partly on his own mother, and therapist Jennifer Melfi after his own therapist. Most of the actors were Italian Americans form New York and New Jersey including 27 that appeared in the 1990 movie Goodfellas. Chase chose James Gandolfini based on his work in 1993’s True Romance. Lorraine Bracco was originally asked to play Tony’s wife, Carmela, but took the role of Melfi instead. Tony Sirico, who had been arrested 28 times, agreed to portray Paulie Walnuts as long as his character wasn’t going to be a “rat.” Steven Van Zandt, a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, didn’t have any acting experienced but was chosen to play Silvio Dante after he presented The Rascals at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions. The Sopranos ran for six seasons with 86 episodes from 1999 to 2007. Rolling Stone and TV Guide both named Sopranos the greatest T.V. show of all time. It won 21 Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globes.