After seeing Barbee reel in the top player in the state, it occurred to me that things are actually looking up in basketball, football, and baseball, for the first time in a while.
Look back at 2008.
Baseball finished 28-28, 11-19 in the SEC, and was led by a lame-duck coach Tom Slater who had earned his pink slip after four straight years of finishing 5th or 6th in SEC-West.
Basketball finished 14-15, 4-12 in the SEC, and was also led by a lame-duck coach who had earned his pink slip (years prior).
Both of these sports were light years away from the relative success they had enjoyed under the previous coaches. Both sports were in dark days, with no apparent light at the end of no apparent tunnel.
Football finished 5-7 and missed a bowl game for the first time in nearly a decade. This was not really a case of a coach being a "lame duck" on account of performance, but either way, he was on his way out.
Football recruiting, another "season" of it's own had not gone well either in 2008. The class was ranked #20, but that was partially due to over-inflation of guys like 5-star Raven "grandpa knees" Gray, and 5-star Jermaine "thug-U bound" Johnson. Landing ZERO of the top 10 in-state players was not a good sign either. In fact, only 1 of the top 20 Alabama prospects ended up on the Auburn roster.
So fast forward two short years (or long if you count how the suffering has felt).
Baseball, under the guidance of a second year coach has Auburn on the cusp of national rankings, a 25-13 record, and headed to the SEC tournament at 8-7 in the conference.
Basketball has hired one of the hot, young, up-and-coming coaches to lead us into a new arena. Within days of the current signing period, he lands the top recruit in the state of Alabama. The previous coach barely recruited Alabama players at all, let alone the TOP player.
Football has bounced back with a respectable record last year, a bowl win, and recently played out the A-Day spring scrimmage in front of the largest Auburn A-Day crown ever.
Recruiting efforts for 2010 landed one of the top 2 or 3 recruiting classes (on paper) that we've ever had. The class included top players from various states, but maybe most importantly, the class included 5 of the top 10 recruits in Alabama. And while the class of 2011 is only 4 players deep right now, three of them are ESPN150 watch-list players, and two are UnderArmour All-Americans. Not only that, but those guys also address the top priority for the upcoming years.
Anyway, it's a nice time to be an Auburn Tiger. Things are actually looking encouraging in all three main sports, and it's been quite a while since we could say that.
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