BMatt’s Monday musings

AUBURN | There’s been a transformational shift in college football over the last few years with the transfer portal and NIL becoming two of the most dominant forces driving player movement and roster management.

More big changes are just around the corner with the expansion of the college football playoff to 12 teams for the 2024 season and the rise of the super conferences.

USC and UCLA will join the Big Ten and Oklahoma and Texas the SEC next summer, boosting both conferences to 16 schools. The ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12 are all scrambling to make up ground on a widening revenue gap.

Closer to home, one of the most significant SEC meetings in a number of years is set to get underway Tuesday with the league needing to decide on a scheduling format for the ’24 season and beyond.

What was thought to likely be the adopting of a 6-3 model, which would mean a ninth conference game, is not necessarily the case anymore with the 7-1 model picking up steam.

The 7-1 model would bring an end to the annual rivalry game against Georgia, known as the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, but the two teams would still play twice every four years.

With the SEC going back to a single division in football and the top two teams making the SEC Championship game, it’s also important to settle on an ironclad system for breaking ties.

With so many changes already here and coming in the near future, the most vital question for Auburn supporters is how well positioned is the University and athletic department to navigate the choppy waters?

The answer, in my eyes, is better than it’s been in decades.

The reason for my optimism comes down to one word — alignment.

Here’s how Bruce Pearl summed it up during a recent stop in LaGrange, Ga., on the AMBUSH tour.

“I think there's a lot of things that are in alignment right now with our president, with our athletic director, with our head football coach, with our entire coaching staff. I think the university, I think our athletic program is in a pretty good spot.”

President Dr. Chris Roberts, athletic director John Cohen and football coach Hugh Freeze have all arrived in Auburn within the last year.

What those three lack in experience in their current positions, they can more than make up for by being on the same page. That’s no small thing at Auburn.

Not at the school that’s been repeatedly mocked in the national media for its lack of leadership and even went on probation because members of the Board of Trustees were micromanaging the University and athletic department.

How many coaching searches over the last 15 years have turned into public fiascos?

I can recall many.

But it wasn’t that way when Roberts hired Cohen. And it wasn’t that way when he turned over the coaching search to Cohen, who hired Freeze two days after the end of last season.

If Auburn is going to be successful in this new era of college sports, it has to have vision, it has to have a sensible and flexible plan, it has to have the will to implement that plan and it has to have alignment.

Having vision and a good plan doesn’t work without alignment.

I believe Roberts, Cohen and Freeze have a vision for what the future of college football looks like and a plan to navigate the new normal. I have no doubt they have the work ethic and they are aligned in their beliefs.

If their vision is clear and their plan sound, good things lie ahead for Auburn.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 39 years to the release of one of the greatest albums of all time from the Queen of Rock ’n Roll. On May 29, 1984, Tina Turner released her comeback album, Private Dancer. It included Turner’s only No. 1 single on the Billboard 100, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” and two top 10 singles in “Better Be Good to Me” and “Private Dancer.” The album came nine years after she escaped an abusive relationship with her husband, Ike Turner. They officially divorced in 1978 but her first two solo albums, 1978’s Rough and 1979’s Love Explosion flopped. John Carter of Capitol Records saw something in Turner and signed her in 1983 despite objections from other Capitol executives. The album has sold more than 12 million copies and won four Grammy Awards in 1985 including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Rolling Stone ranked it 46th on its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980’s and VH1 named it the 95th greatest album of all time. The album was certified 5x platinum and was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2020.

Anna Mae Bullock was born in 1939 in a rural area of Brownsville, Tenn. Her mother left the family when she was 11 years old and she eventually moved in with her grandparents. She was a cheerleader and basketball player at Carver High School, but moved to St. Louis with her mom after her grandmother died where she graduated. She first saw Ike Turner performing at a club in East St. Louis and eventually joined his band as a singer. Ike renamed her Tina because he was inspired by Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and wanted the ability to name another singer, Tina, if Anna Mae left the band. They had a breakout hit with 1960’s “A Fool in Love,” which rose to No. 2 on the R&B chart. The abuse started before they were married in 1962 and continued throughout their marriage along with his infidelity that drove Tina to a suicide attempt in 1968. They toured as the Ike & Tina Turner Revue throughout the 60’s and continued to release albums, ending the decade opening for the Rolling Stones on their U.S. tour and appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. A 1971 cover of CCR’s Proud Mary became their biggest hit, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard 100 and earning them a Grammy. Other hits included “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine,” “River Deep — Mountain High” and Nutbush City Limits.” Her solo career also included movie appearances including 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, which included her hit single, “We Don’t Need Another Hero.” She has won 12 Grammys and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as both a solo artists and with Ike Turner. She has sold over 100 million records and is ranked 61st on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Turner settled in Switzerland in 1994 and became a Swiss citizen in 2013. She suffered from several illnesses in the last decade and her husband donated one of his kidneys to her in 2017. She passed away on May 24, 2023 with an estimated net worth was $225 million.