AUBURN | Big Cat is back and it’s bigger than ever.

Auburn concluded its most successful Big Cat this weekend with five commitments Saturday, another Sunday and several more expected within the next week or so.

Auburn’s premier recruiting event had slipped to its lowest point under the previous coach but Hugh Freeze has brought it back with a roar.

It’s never been better.

The Tigers came out of the weekend with the nation’s No. 1 2026 class after adding three highly-rated in-state commitment from rising juniors.

AU added the nation’s No. 4 cornerback, Blake Woodby, and flipped Alabama defensive tackle commitment Antonio Coleman for a second time Saturday.

The nation’s No. 2 punter, John McGuire, joined the class Sunday.

There are no guarantees in recruiting, but if things break Auburn’s way over the next week to 10 days, the 2025 class could be sitting squarely in the top 5.

Auburn’s 12th right now with 19 commitments. So it would take some big-time commitments to shoot up that far in the rankings.

I’m here to tell you it can happen.

AU hasn’t had a top 5 class since 2010 and hasn’t had back-to-back top 10 classes since 2016.

If it happens in 2025, and I think it will, we’ll look back on Big Cat as the pivotal moment. AU had a good class going into the weekend, and may finish with a great one coming out.

And all it took was hiring a coach, who hired a staff, that all made recruiting a priority.

Gene Chizik, Trooper Taylor and Curtis Luper and that 2009 staff were trailblazers in recruiting. They had a vision and were so good at their job that the NCAA had to create new rules just to slow them down.

But Big Cat persisted. And 15 years later it’s reached new heights.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 57 years to the day one of the first-ever psychedelic rock songs hit the top of the charts. On July 29, 1967, the Doors’ “Light My Fire” hit No. 1 on the Billboard 100. The song was mainly written by guitarist Robby Krieger, but the entire band was credited. Krieger said he was inspired by the lyrics from the Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire” and the melody from Jimi Hendrix’s version of “Hey Joe” when writing “Light My Fire.” It was the second release from the Doors’ self-titled debut album, which also included “Break On Through (To the Other Side).” When scheduled to appear on the Ed Sullivan show on Sept. 17, 1967, the Doors were asked to change the lyric, “girl, we couldn’t get much higher,” to “girl, we couldn’t get much better.” Lead singer Jim Morrison sang the sanitized version of the lyric during rehearsals before going back to the original lyric during the show. Sullivan refused to shake Morrison’s hand afterward and told the band they would never perform on the show again. After spending three weeks at No. 1, “Light My Fire” was knocked off the top spot by the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.” It reentered the charts in 1968 following a cover by Jose Feliciano, which peaked at No. 3 and won Feliciano a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Male Pop Vocal Performance. The Doors’ version is ranked by Rolling Stone as the 35th best song of all time. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

The Doors got their start when Morrison met keyboardist Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July of 1965. They recognized each other from attending film school at UCLA. Drummer John Densmore joined the band a month later and Krieger by the end of the year. Their name came from Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, which was inspired by a line from the poet William Blake. They started out playing at clubs in Los Angeles including the Whisky a Go Go, which led to them being signed by Elektra Records in August of 1966. The released their debut album in January of 1967 and their second album, Strange Days, in September of ’67, which included a couple of more popular songs in “People Are Strange” and “Love Me Two Times.” The band continued to roll out more albums and more hit singles including 1968’s “Hello, I Love You,” which became their second No. 1, and “Touch Me,” and 1971’s “Riders On The Storm,” "L.A. Woman” and “Love Her Madly.” Morrison, who struggled with alcohol and drugs, was a force of nature and became a counterculture icon. He was arrested onstage during a concert after an earlier run-in with the police in New Haven in 1967 and was convicted of lewd behavior during a concert in Miami in 1969. Morrison was found dead in a bath at the age of 27 in Paris in 1971. The cause of death was listed as heart failure but it’s suspected he died of a heroin overdose. The Doors released three albums after Morrison’s death. Manzarek passed away from cancer in 2013. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2007.