It's the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. trash talk chat. You also get an ad-free version of your favorite Locked On show and a whole lot more. You can check it out by tapping the Everyday Your Club link in the show notes. Byron Brown gets more important every single day. You are Locked On Auburn, your daily podcast on the Auburn Tigers. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Yes, welcome on in to Locked on Auburn, your daily Auburn Tigers podcast. I'm your host, Zach Blackerby. Thank you so much for making Locked on Auburn your first listen every single day. Lindsey Crosby of The Barn, Auburn.com, as well as other places hanging out with us. We all have questions about Auburn basketball. How are we at this point and what do we do now? We take stabs at that as well as an interesting note about Auburn releasing their rosters. Is it interesting or is it important? But we got to start with the most important thing of all, and that is Byron Brown. And we'll talk more about the basketball stuff in a second, like we mentioned, but I do think with Auburn and a spot to where they're unlikely to make the tournament at this point and the collapse that we've seen, we talked about this seven days ago, Lindsay, how basketball was kind of this oasis in the off season for Auburn fans to where he's like, okay, football's underachieved. Basketball's overachieving. This is something we can hold on to. And the first year of Steven Pearl has not gone that way. And I think with the addition of Byron Brown and the hope of Byron Brown, and I think Auburn's messaging and Alex Goal is bringing Byron Brown with him. anytime he's speaking somewhere publicly at all these Auburn clubs, I think it's only adding fuel to the fire. Byron Brown has become the most important Auburn player, I think, in the last 10 years. One, I want to say to those fans who are sad that basketball is the way it is, you have another oasis in baseball, which Thompson would love your support. But yeah, no, this is, everything revolves around football. We said that last week. That's just, that's how it works at an SEC school. And you can like, you brought in a lot of talent. You lost a lot of talent, whatever. But I don't want to say it doesn't work, but it's a lot harder to see it working if Byron Brown is not on the field every single play. And so you're not, unlike a lot of transfer situations in the past, you're not banking on a guy living up to the promise that he's shown. He's done that. He's a proven performer. You're just banking that he can make the adjustment to a higher level of competition with a coach who has successfully coached this offense at a higher level of competition. So less questions. But if he doesn't work out, you're in trouble because Auburn football is in a slump that they have not been in in a long time. And right now, he is really the only player that you added to the roster that has any hope of single-handedly carrying you to the promised land of a winning record again. Right, yeah. No, I think all that's on his shoulders, and I think everyone in that building is comfortable with him carrying that load. I mean, if you think back to the previous quarterbacks that have been brought in, And I mean, we could even go. Let's go post Jarrett Stidham. Because, you know, I think there were decent expectations placed on Jarrett Stidham. But after that, when Bo Nix comes in, there were a lot of folks, myself included, that expected Joey Gatewood to be the next guy. Okay. All right. And then, you know, after Bo leaves, Harsin kind of put everybody in a tough spot. I don't think anybody was expecting, you know, TJ Finley or Zach Calzada to, you know, take Auburn to the college football playoff. But then even when Hugh Freeze brought in Peyton Thorne, there was still some sort of, you know, faith and backup quarterback play. And, you know, there was some back and forth there with Robbie Ashford. But also, I don't think there was this rush to win right away with Hugh Freeze. It was, you know, we're going to build this the right way. We're going to bring in talent and give us three years. Yeah, we understood where the program was, I think, too, as a program and how down it was. That was part of the reason for the patience. Right. And then, you know, with bringing Peyton back, they tried to make him less important. And then with Jackson, they tried to make it everything but the quarterback. And obviously that approach didn't work. But that's not what this is. Alex Golish is like, yeah, my offense was really good and it's been good in other places, but like Byram was the USF offense last year. Yeah. Let's do this. Let's bring all of this here and let's see if it translates. So to me, I think Byram Brown is the most important addition to the Auburn football program that we've seen in a long, long time. I mean, you've had big recruits that signaled different things, right? Like you've won recruiting battles against like Alabama and stuff. And so you've had guys that came in. It was a big deal that you made this, you won this recruitment, you brought this guy in. But to your point, I don't think there was an expectation of a certain level of wins and losses from winning that recruiting battle. Whereas with, with Myron Brown, it is very clearly, it has to translate in wins. Like it's not a, it's not a moral victory thing. Right. It's not a we're building the program the right way thing. This is a I'm bringing this quarterback in. I am really I am paying for this quarterback. Yeah, we believe that with him, we are going to be able to win football games. And so I do think it's a lot easier for us to judge at the end of the day how successful the transfer was because we're looking at wins and losses. Whereas if you're looking at winning the recruitment for Cam Coleman or something, you're talking about recruiting momentum in the state versus Alabama and all that nebulous stuff. This will have direct measurable outcomes. But the cost of like, say, not getting the Cam Coleman recruitment, not winning that recruitment wasn't going to be incredibly severe. The cost of Brown not working out will be very visible, very felt, and very bad. It not going to cost Alex Golis job a brand new hire but it definitely would start off his tenure the wrong foot if Brown is healthy and they still can make it happen Yeah, and it also, I mean, to strengthen your argument, I mean, I think in real time, I would have put the importance of Cam Coleman higher, but now in retrospect, it's like, well. He can transfer out anyway, yeah. And what did he win? What did he win? I think he won like an SEC player of the week thing one time, maybe, but the team didn't win. Yeah. Because like, there's just, there's just, it's, even if you compare this to other quarterbacks, right? Like you could say, okay, you know, the Peyton Thorne transfer in is probably the next most consequential. Simply because you knew you were going to win the recruitment of Bo Nix. Come on. It's Bo Nix. you knew you were going to get that. Sure. It's just there's no, and here's the thing, there's not really any other great options behind Byron Brown. It's not like, like when Peyton Thorne came in, we all said, yeah, Peyton Thorne's going to be the starter, but you could make cases for other guys behind him. You're not doing that behind Byron Brown. There's zero question here. He is brought in to lead the offense. He's going to be a team captain in year one. And if it doesn't work out, it's going to be awkward. Yeah, I mean, it's clear what the plan is. I've said this since Alex Golish was hired. I love that there is a clear plan. They are executing the plan. You can have your opinion on the plan. Is it going to work? Is it not? We'll see. That's going to work itself out. I love that there is a clear plan and they're following it. And we'll see what it looks like. And obviously, Byron Brown is a massive, massive part of that plan. When you look at the roster that Auburn released late last week, there's a few interesting notes, or at least I think it's interesting, or is it important? Let's discuss that next. Right here, Unlocked on Auburn. Today's show brought to you by our friends at FanDuel. FanDuel is America's number one sportsbook. and right now, FanDuel realizes that college basketball is nonstop. Big games, tight spreads, momentum swings every single night from early tip-offs to late West Coast shootouts. There's always action on the board. And now FanDuel is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a college basketball parlay profit boost. 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Need to hire? That's a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs. Thank you so much for making Locked on Auburn your first listen every single day. Want to encourage you to head over to locked on auburn.supercast.com to join our everyday club. If you hate interruptions but love this show, check it out. You can get access to an ad-free audio feed right there. pardon my voice. I'm fighting through this one, Lindsey Crosby. So when you look at Auburn's roster that was released late last week, there's three tens and there's three 19s. And I think they're both related to each other. And I think one is important, could be important. I think there's an argument for it. And one is interesting. Okay. There are three number tens, Walter Mathis, junior on great. Stevenson Lyman, yeah. Yep. The other two are on offense. One is Tristan Tia, who we assume will win the quarterback two job, which is important. That is an important job, especially when you have a mobile quarterback like Byron Brown. Byron also missed a ton of time two seasons ago. Your backup quarterback does matter in the Southeastern Conference. One snap away from being on the field. Always. Always one snap away. and then duke smith is the other number 10 and i'm really trying not to read it much too much into this and i want you to kind of talk me off the ledge and be like zach it's spring not even spring yet they've got plenty of time to change this if this is actually is relevant but i do think it's a little odd because i think a lot of folks are expecting duke smith to take that big step forward athletically and physically. He's certainly capable of doing it. And that's when you see your biggest jump from your freshman year to your sophomore year. And that's what we're seeing with Duke Smith. And when you have a guy that we're all expecting to at least crack the rotation or have a chance to crack the rotation and your backup quarterback, who's always one play away, wearing the same number, is that saying something or is this just, no, these are the numbers are going to wear for spring and they could change them after. I was about to say, I think with, with Tia specifically, this may be a situation where they're going to change the numbers later. If you look at what he wore at Oregon state, he's worn number three and number 10. Number three is right now, Lachlan Hewlett, the back, you know, the, the freshman quarterback that was committed to USF undergo last year. flipped his commitment here and then 10 clearly is duke smith no hewlett hewlett was a he was at usf he trained i'm sorry that's right i'm sorry thank you i brush and we'll talk about in a second that's that's that's how we get it backwards there we go um and so it's entirely possible that tia is i'm gonna wear 10 during spring and then i'm gonna move to something else or maybe duke smith is going to move to something else so the the 310 thing is interesting and it's pretty similar to the three 19s that we were seeing on the roster. Reese brush, who you just mentioned, Jake Johnson, who I think will be the starting tight end. Yep. And scrap Richardson, who's the lone defender of the 19s. We'll see how much he plays. There's differing opinions on if he can crack the rotation at defensive back. But with Reese, I don't think anybody's expecting Reese brush to play the freshman coming in, whatever. probably the fourth quarterback in the room And then Jake Johnson you starting tight ends Like okay If there a situation where reese has to come in you either switch out jake johnson jersey or you don put him in or in situations where brush would play if johnson isn starting tight end he probably done anyway because it's all going to be backups in there yeah that would make sense but when you look at 10 10 does not make sense for that reason yeah and if you were to try to change one of the one of the guys at 10, either Tia or Smith, if I'm doing this right, other than that zero, I think the next option you have is something in the 20s. I want to say it's something like 20, like 27. Now, are you talking about changing Duke Smith's number or Tristan Tia changing his number? Either one. I mean, unless you go with that zero thing, because you're not going to use two, you're not going to use seven. There's so many options that just Auburn's not going to give those numbers out. And so it's like 27, you have a defensive player, but no offensive player. 28, you have a defensive player, but no offensive player. But like 26, you're doubled up. 25 is offense. 24, you're doubled up. 23, you're doubled up. Just, there you go. 22, you're doubled up. 21, you're doubled up. I guess 20 would be open too. There is a defensive 20. Yeah, but QB can't wear 20, right? If you look at the 80s, is there an option in the 80s for... Uh, actually, you know what? There's not an 88. There's not an 88, which I feel like you should make a tight end move to 88. Cause that feels like a big guy number. Yeah. And Eccles beat, you know, the tight end from USF Eccles being one. Number one is kind of wild to me. Maybe they're going to, maybe that's what they're going to switch. I have a theory that number one on offense should always be your fastest dude. It just feels like that's a fast number. maybe it's me remembering Percy Harvin, but I feel like number one should be your fastest player on the field. Yeah. So maybe you move Eccles to 88 and then you put somebody, you give somebody else one, who's the fastest receiver we have. You put him at number one. Yeah. I'm guessing Bryce Kane is it right now, but Bryce Kane's fast. Singleton's fast. Cogar's fast. Yeah. Let them all race. Winter gets to be number one. Yeah. That's not going to end poorly at all for us. Why? No, no i i do think um at quarterback like i think you can move tia to 12 like brady marquise the freshman like i don't think he's gonna play much this year how much was it pedigree the transfer from south florida how much is he gonna play 14 about moving him there 14 and hudson cock neither of those guys play offense so maybe that's gonna be something you do yeah maybe that's gonna be something you do is so 14 is an option you just double up at or triple up at another number in this case one that either doesn't have an offensive player or one that's not going to have somebody that gets into the game a lot yeah man name somebody who has better number 17s than us though goodness gracious with atkins at Byram. Goodness gracious. All right. All right. So, yeah, I just thought that would be an interesting discussion. Probably doesn't mean anything. It's going to be very easy to move numbers around, but I do think that's interesting. A guy who's one play away being the same number as a guy who we think could take a big step forward in the receiver room. Yes, Lindsey Crosby. Buffalo Bills. Two of them? No, they just, but they have Josh Allen. Like, it's probably a better number 17 at the end of the day. The thought exercise who has two 17s who in college has two 17s um baseball kind of gets this shohei otani we're 17 and he's both a hitter and a pitcher i'd rather have byron brown and xavier atkins i yes i'm i know that that's i'd rather auburn football also have xavier atkins and byron brown but if you gave me the opportunity to put shohei otani on butch thompson's team oh my god i'd really think about it that'd be a ton of fun that'd be a ton of fun it would ruin the sport for a year all right um let's jump back into the hoops questions because there are a ton of questions that's next right here on locked on auburn today's show brought to you by our friends at robin hood what if sports were traded like markets now you can put your sports iq to work in real time with robin hood prediction markets. It's not you against the house. It's you participating in a live market. You can buy or sell your positions live all game long. Use your sports knowledge and moments that matter. 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Now, maybe not as absurd because who's going to want to watch this game anyway, between these two teams. baseball people can finish up versus Samford and then just flip on LSU. There you go. That probably starts at six. Yeah. So, yeah, man, it's just, it's such a complex situation. Nobody is happy with how this season has gone. Do I think Steven has done a great job this year? No, I don't. Do I think the roster was built to win a championship? No, I don't. Do I think culturally that these guys have bought in? No, I don't. But they still underachieved. And with what Bruce Pearl built, there is no reason to miss the tournament. With Auburn having one of the highest paid and most supported programs in the SEC, one of the highest paid rosters in the SEC, you should not be losing the schools like Ole Miss, like Oklahoma. I mean, the list goes on and on. Auburn has just dropped the ball over and over and over again. And it's a complex situation. For all the folks that are saying, fire Steve and Pearl, look, I get the frustration. I get where you're coming from. And in a perfect situation, maybe that would happen. I don't think it's going to happen. I think there's an argument for it. But let me be clear. I don't think it's going to happen. And so when you look at it, it's like, all right, well, what does the future look like? reportedly they're they're moving in to hire a gm that'll help with with personnel take something out of steven hands okay great and when you couple that with the revenue and the nil that about to open up when the portal opens i think a lot of these guys are going to obviously leave because of graduation And I also think a lot of these guys are just going to portal just because I do think a fresh start is needed on this roster. It's an awful situation. I think it's multifaceted. I don't think it's all on Steven. I don't think it's all on the players. I think it's a lot of bad happening and it just didn't work. But the degree of it not working, I do think it's on Steven. There's no reason to miss the tournament with the backing that this program has now from a stat like from a from a player perspective if i remember right the only guy you brought back was like your sixth man last year like yeah it was a complete reconstruction of the roster but i do think to that point you should at least be able to make the tournament as a you know a number seven seed or something like that. The thing that gets me, and I was able to watch some of this game when I finished all my baseball stuff yesterday or Saturday. All of Miss not only won this game, but that's the most points they've scored in regulation in over a month. That's the fewest points they've allowed in the entire month of February. Not only did they win, they looked as good as they've looked in a month when they did it and it's like i mean auburn like just auburn not being auburn there's a lot of issues there i think you could have touched on it's a perfect storm of everything going wrong the culture stuff with swapping coaches the inexperience of a brand new coach the defense just being terrible which has not really been a thing that it was under bruce the offense that just can't seemingly be consistent and get it together. It's very inconsistent. But, like, they're also not helping themselves. And it's just, I mean, quad three loss here. First time Auburn's had a quad three loss in a couple years, I think. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it sucks. What are your opinions of the Keyshawn Murphy thing? So, when Daryl and I were live, we didn't see this. I saw this when I was kind of reading what Steven said. after this, but I thought they were just changing the lineup because they needed to, like they needed to just try something, but that's not what happened. Sounds like he was 20 minutes late to a film session or practice. And so this was his punishment, which I'm fine with punishing it. But at this point in the season and an upperclassman being 20 minutes late, this is a culture that has trended and grown this direction over the last few weeks, right? him and we saw them you know we saw him bench Keyshawn Hall and now this has happened there's been stuff happening you know with Cade Magwood which Auburn fans like or you know want to see him despite all that happening and this is the culture that is happening now how much of that is how much of that is these guys like these players thought they were going to play for Bruce and they're frustrated. I don't, I don't know, but regardless, the current, you know, the current version of this culture is not good. I don't have an issue with Steven issuing these suspensions or issuing these punishments. I don't have an issue with that at all. You can't let those players run your program. Yeah. But that's the part of it where I do think the anti Steven, you know, the, the, the folks that want to fire Steven right away should take a breath and say, well, these guys didn't sign up to play for Steven. And so when they're not giving Steven, you know, 100%, what does that look like? To me, I think that's the part where I'm like, I kind of feel for Steven to some extent. Now, has Steven been the greatest coach on the court? No, I don't think so. I think he like goes too long without calling timeouts. And I think there's times where this team just does not seem like they're the smartest team when it comes to basketball IQ and situational awareness and all of that. But, once again, that's why I think this has gotten so bad so quick is there's a lot of bad things happening at once. And so how many of those things go away if they do choose to blow up the roster and then rebuild things? I think Stephen Brady and his own guys definitely helps. I mean, the way that that whole situation ended, no player has had an opportunity to decide, hey, this is not what I signed up for. I want out, right? Given the timing of when it happened, right? Before the season and everything and how, you know, if you try to transfer right then, I mean, you're not, you're not going to get to play and all of that stuff. This isn't, this isn't his roster. This is almost like a year zero for Steven, right? You're getting a lot of, a lot of on the job training. The bad part is it came in, it came at our expense, right? Like the fans had to watch this team be bad, but I like to think that when he has a full off season to recruit his own roster, guys who are signing up to play for him, not play for his legendary father. Yeah. I do think that's going to look different. And I do think that's the main reason why you're going to see Steven Pearl back next year, simply because a lot of the issues here, did he make them better? No, but are they his fault? Also? No. And I think that's going to be kind of important. And I think that's what John Cohen's going to look at when he looks back at this and says, Hey, do we need to make a move or not at basketball? I don't think he will. And I think that's why. Yeah. I get being frustrated. I get being unhappy and the product on the court has not been good enough. We all agree on that. So we'll see what John Cohen and Auburn leadership's direction of this is moving forward. We'll probably know in a few weeks. So we'll see what happens with all that. Lindsay, how can people check out everything you've got going on? I'm on social media at Crosby baseball, the Auburn baseball stuff, the barn, Auburn.com and our live recaps. We have something from yesterday from game three versus Nebraska. And the one of brave stuff, bravestoday.com and the bravestoday podcast. Yes. And I guess we'll go. We got to discuss what we'll do with, with Tuesday's coverage. We got to figure that out, but yes, make sure you're subscribed either on YouTube or on audio to never miss any of our instant game recaps as well. Please like the video, please subscribe. We'll see you next time. This has been Locked on Auburn. Meet the energy shot that tastes just like birthday cake. Confetti craze, extra strength, five-hour energy, tastes like a rich, buttery, vanilla birthday cake. Frosting and all. Light the candles, make a wish, and get ready to celebrate with every sip. 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