AUBURN | After two years of a haphazard approach to the transfer portal, Auburn is focused, aggressive and ticking off its top needs one by one.
It’s a breath of fresh air.
Within a week, the Tigers have already filled their two biggest needs with two of the top players available in quarterback Jackson Arnold from Oklahoma and offensive tackle Xavier Chaplin from Virginia Tech.
They also filled an important need at running back signing Durell Robinson from UConn and upgraded special teams with Oklahoma State punter Hudson Kaak.
Auburn’s not close to being through yet. There are important needs on the defensive line, pass rusher, secondary, tight end and wide receiver to be filled. AU also needs to sign a couple of more quarterbacks and offensive linemen.
They’ve already hosted many top targets at those positions for visits, which is a great sign that more additions are coming soon.
Much of the credit should go to Will Redmond, who was hired 11 months ago to shore up AU’s efforts in the transfer portal, which he’s done quite efficiently.
Arnold and Chaplin are foundational pieces for an offense that has to take several steps forward for the Tigers to compete in the top half of the SEC.
Arnold has the potential to be the best quarterback AU’s had since Bo Nix and Chaplin the best left tackle since at least Shon Coleman nearly a decade ago.
This spring will mark five years since AU has had an offensive lineman drafted. That can’t continue if Auburn is going to be successful.
Hugh Freeze and his staff needed to attack this year’s portal with a sense of urgency. As if their careers at Auburn depended on it. Because it does.
Entering his third season and with four consecutive losing seasons hanging over the program, there’s no more room for error. There has to be results.
It appears Freeze understands this and is taking the right steps to build a more competitive roster. There are certainly other steps this program needs to take on and off the field over the next eight months, but this past week and the next few are about building a better roster via the portal.
So far, so very good.
*** 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. ***
*** GET 15% OFF YOUR ON-LINE ORDER WITH THE DISCOUNT CODE: BMATT15 ***
In today’s musical journey, we go back 254 years to the birth of one of the greatest composers and pianists of all time. On Dec. 16, 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany. He came from a family of musicians. His grandfather was a prominent musician and music director and his father was a tenor and musical teacher. He had two brothers while four of his other siblings didn’t survive infancy. Beethoven picked up music at a very early age and published his first piece in 1783. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, Austria where he composed his first three Opus 1 piano trios. By 1800, he had composed his first orchestra, the First Symphony. Beethoven, who was one of the first musical artists to focus his compositions on the piano, began losing his hearing in his 20’s, hearing a constant buzzing by the age of 27 and going completely deaf at age 44. His compositions became higher in pitch as he lost his hearing including Fur Elise, which was written in 1810 at the age of 42. He suffered a number of other illnesses including typhus and rheumatic fever, eventually passing away from liver disease, which was likely caused by viral hepatitis and alcoholism, at the age of 56 in 1827.
Beethoven’s music remains very popular with an average of more than a half million streams on Spotify per day. His most popular composition is 1801’s Sonata No. 14 “Moonlight,” which was dedicated to countess Giulietta Guicciardi, who Beethoven had a romantic interest in. Another popular composition is Symphony No. 5, which is called the Fate Symphony and was written between 1804-08. It is noted as a foundational composition of the Classical period and has a short-short-short-long opening motif that has been used in many contemporary disco and rock songs. Beethoven transitioned from the Classical period, which included Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, to the Romantic period, which included Frederic Chopin. Beethoven’s romantic era compositions include Piano Sonata No. 8, known as the Sonata Pathetique, and Symphony No. 3, known as the Eroica Symphony. Beethoven never married or had children, but did play an active part in raising his nephew Karl Van Beethoven and left him his entire estate upon his death.
