BMatt’s Monday musings

AUBURN | Welcome to the SEC.

By the way, we hate you and hope your first year in the league is an unmitigated disaster.

The you, of course, is Oklahoma and Texas, which officially joined the SEC today.

We wish them nothing but the worst.

Why so mean? Well, it’s just how we roll ‘round these parts.

In the SEC, we love to hate each other. And then we love even more to brag about how great we are as a collective.

Sure, they do that in other conferences. But not to this degree. Not like the SEC.

One of our favorite pastimes is talking about how teams that had undefeated or one-loss seasons in “lesser” conferences like the ACC, Big 12 or the now defunct Pac-12, would have two or three more losses if they played in the SEC.

So expect everybody in this conference to root hard for you to fall flat on your face in your first year here.

For Texas, a projected preseason top five team, that means losing four or more games and missing out on the expanded 12-team college football playoff.

A November loss at an average Arkansas would be the icing on the cake as half the conference’s fans gleefully get a Horns Down tattoo in an inappropriate place on their body.

For Oklahoma, perhaps a five- or six-loss season and having to fire your third-year head coach just five months after giving him an unnecessary raise and extension.

Now, that’s as SEC as it gets. Chef’s kiss.

And if either or both have great debut seasons, perhaps win the conference or the national championship. Then we can all brag about how great the SEC is once again.

It’s a win-win for everybody, but probably a few more losses for our newest frenemies.

It’s the SEC after all.

***

There are ups and downs in every recruiting cycle.

The key is to not have those down times right before or during Signing Day.

Auburn’s had a few of those in my time. It’s not pretty.

It happened to Billy Napier last fall as Florida lost eight commitments — including two that flipped to Auburn — and saw their 2024 class slip out of the top five into 15th nationally.

Auburn’s gone through a recent spell losing two commitments and coming up short in two other recruitments over the past week.

It happens.

Fortunately, it’s 22 weeks until Signing Day, not 22 days or 22 hours.

That’s why you recruit more than one top prospect at a position. It’s why you keep recruiting those same players after they flip or choose another school.

It’s why you host a large number of your top targets for what’s shaping up to be one of Auburn’s best-ever Big Cats on July 27.

Hugh Freeze closed out AU’s 2023 class with seven flips including three of Auburn’s current best players — Keldric Faulk, Kayin Lee and Connor Lew. He flipped a half dozen more standouts last year including wide receivers Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson.

Freeze and his staff can flat-out recruit at the highest level and they’re doing it again with the 2025 class.

I don’t know if Auburn will sign a top five class in December. I absolutely wouldn't rule it out.

But I do know when we look back on this class on Dec. 4, nobody will care about anything that happened this past week.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 29 years to the passing of a musical legend best known for spinning records and howling at the moon. On July 1, 1995, legendary disc jockey Wolfman Jack died of a heart attack at his home in Belvidere, N.C. shortly after recording his weekly show. He was just 57 years old. He came up with the Wolfman Jack persona, which came from his love of horror films, while working at a radio station in Shreveport, La. He started broadcasting as Wolfman Jack in 1963 on XERF, a powerful station in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, which had a signal powerful enough to reach all of North America. His show became widely popular, and he was featured in many national magazines and even had several songs written about him including 1974’s “Wolfman Jack” by Todd Rundgren and 1974’s “Clap For The Wolfman” by The Guess Who. He also appeared, often as himself, in 87 films and T.V. shows. At its peak, his syndicated radio show was distributed to 2000 radio stations in 53 countries.

Robert Weston Smith was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1938. He grew up listening on a Trans-Oceanic radio, which was made by Zenith and could receive shortwave signals. Smith would listen to music and DJ’s from Philadelphia, Cleveland and Nashville. He dropped out of high school but was able to attend the National Academy of Broadcasting and graduated from there in 1960. He supported himself during school by selling products including encyclopedias door-to-door. His first radio job came at WYOU in Newport News, N.J., in 1960 where he did three separate shows using three different personas. He moved to Shreveport a year later. After his stint on XERF, Smith became the co-host of NBC’s late-night musical show, The Midnight Special. He was also cast as himself in the 1973 movie American Graffiti. He started syndicating his shows in the early 1970’s and also appeared on Armed Forces Radio from 1970 to 1986. In the early 2000’s, Wolfman Jack’s radio shows were digitized and his shows are still being distributed.