AUBURN | I believe in giving credit where it’s due, and Saturday’s 21-17 loss to LSU was the best Auburn has played this season.
The atmosphere at Jordan-Hare Stadium was terrific. Auburn’s players gave good effort as they have throughout the first five games.
These are all truths as I see it.
It’s also true that playing your best game in a 4-point home loss to a bang average SEC team isn’t a sign of good things to come. Going into this Saturday’s game against Georgia, one of your most important rivals, as a four-touchdown underdog isn’t a good sign either.
But this is the state of Auburn’s football program under Bryan Harsin in 2022. And while AU played its “best” game of the season, many of the same issues that have plagued Harsin throughout his 18 games in charge were present again Saturday.
Blowing a double-digit lead? Check
Being shutout in the second half? Check
Unable to establish the running game? Check
Being out-played on special teams? Check
Losing the turnover battle? Check, check and check.
But I’ve written and talked about these and more problems so much, I’m even bored with it.
Unfortunately, I noticed some new cracks in the armor Saturday night. More issues that could mean AU’s game against LSU was not only the “best” so far, but could end up being the best this season.
Those cracks are starting to show on defense, the unit that’s kept the Tigers in four of their five games. Eku Leota left the LSU game with an injury and while his replacement, Marcus Bragg, played well, the Western Kentucky transfer isn’t as quick of a pass rusher.
The drop-off is much steeper behind Bragg at AU’s edge position.
The rest of the starting defensive line — Derick Hall (75), Colby Wooden (64) and Marcus Harris (62) — played the majority of the 79 snaps on defense.
Noseguard Jayson Jones, who has started and played a lot this season, played just 22 snaps with a huge brace on his left elbow.
Other key defenders including linebackers Owen Pappoe (79) and Wesley Steiner (76), safeties Zion Puckett (78) and Donovan Kaufman (75), and cornerback D.J. James (71) also played all or the vast majority of the snaps at their positions.
I’ve certainly covered many players that can handle that kind of workload throughout a season. But having that many on one team seems unsustainable to me, especially on the defensive front seven.
That’s especially the case coming off a physical game against LSU, going up against a powerful Georgia offense on the road this week that’s upset it couldn’t run the ball more effectively against Missouri and finishing up a two-game road trip at Ole Miss, which leads the SEC in rushing offense.
Oh boy. Better hold onto your britches.
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Auburn fancies itself an Everything School but one sport that has struggled to keep up with the rest has been volleyball.
Not anymore.
In his third season, Brent Crouch has transformed the program into a big-time winner. Auburn is off to its best start in program history at 14-0 overall and 3-0 in the SEC.
That’s phenomenal when you consider the Tigers have never won an SEC regular season or tournament championship in 35 years competing in the league.
In fact, AU has finished in the bottom half of the SEC standings 18 of the past 20 seasons. That would be like having Tony Barbee running your program for two full decades of complete misery.
It’s anything but that under Crouch, who has seven freshmen playing prominent roles on this year’s team. You can watch the Tigers go for their 15th win Wednesday night at LSU. It’s on SEC Network at 7 p.m. CT.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back eight years to the day one of the greatest albums of all time reached even new heights 37 years after its release. On Oct. 3, 2014, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was certified Double Diamond by the RIAA, becoming one of only 12 albums to ever sell more than 20 million copies. Rumours, which was released on Feb. 4, 1977, became a commercial and critical success, ranking seventh on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It spent 461 weeks on the Billboard 200 including 31 at No. 1. It won the Grammy in 1977 for Album of the Year, inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003 and was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2018. Rumours was loaded with hit songs but only Dreams climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Don’t Stop, Go Your Own Way and You Make Loving Fun all charted while Second Hand News, The Chain and Gold Dust Woman remain part of the playing rotation on 1970’s and classic rock stations. In all, Fleetwood Mac have sold over 120 million albums, which ranks among the most of all time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
Fleetwood Mac was formed in London in 1967 by Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and John McVie. Mick offered to name the band Fleetwood Mac to entice McVie to join. They recorded a couple of blues albums before Green left and Christine McVie joined the band in 1970. Fleetwood Mac continued to go through personnel changes until New Year’s Eve in 1974 when Fleetwood heard a track by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles and asked them to join the band. They released a new album in 1975 titled Fleetwood Mac, which included their first big hits: Rhiannon, Over My Head and Say You Love Me. Rumours took more than a year to produce as John and Christine McVie were going through a divorce in 1976 along with Mick Fleetwood and his wife. Buckingham and Nicks were also breaking up and there were large amounts of drugs and alcohol consumed during the studio sessions. While everything was falling apart in their private lives, they composed one of the greatest albums of all time. The band released several more albums with more hits including Sara and Gypsy before breaking up in 1982. They reunited in 1993 after Don’t Stop became the theme song to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and he asked them to play it at his inaugural ball. Fleetwood Max toured together on and off and produced a couple of albums over the next 25 years before Buckingham was eventually kicked out of the band in 2018. Dreams re-entered the Billboard 100 in October of 2020 after Nathan Apodaca posted a TikTok video of him skateboarding behind a vehicle while lip-synching the song.
