aubiefifty

if i was gay i would be on him like a rat on a cheeto...........

some folks just do not understand greatness. i do and i need nothing from you but i will argue with anyone that says otherwise.......

Bill Maher Explains Why He Believes Donald Trump Is ‘Literally Crazy’ | Video Stephanie Kaloi Sun, May 12, 2024 at 5:16 PM CDT·3 min read 308 Bill Maher is aware that he is equally enjoyed and derided by the political right and the left. In an interview with CBS News’ “Sunday Morning,” Maher told Robert Costa that he’s aiming to speak for the “normies” anyway. “I speak for that, I think, vast middle that is tighter than partisanship,” he explained. “I don’t want to hate half the country, and I don’t hate half the country.” As for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump? He is “literally crazy,” Maher said. The conversation largely centered around Maher’s latest book, “What This Comedian Said Will Shock You.” In it, Costa said, Maher expressed that “the left irritates” and “frustrates” him, but the political right “often alarms you.” Maher agreed. “Yes,” he said. “They’re very alarming. They’re extremely alarming, more alarming.” To critics that believe Maher should focus more on right-wing politics in the U.S. if he’s alarmed, he said there’s one problem: “The truth isn’t one-sided like that.” “The Democrats constantly are running against Trump with the idea, ‘You people out there couldn’t possibly vote for this guy,'” Maher continued. “And people are saying, ‘Watch me. Hold my beer. Watch me vote for him again.'” Instead, the media should focus on Trump’s obvious faults, Maher asserted. “We know he’s a liar,” Maher explained. “He’s Donald Trump. He can’t help himself. He’s crazy. I mean, I think literally crazy. I think there’s a level of malignant narcissism, which is not just a personality quirk. It’s diagnosable, and he suffers from it.” Maher also said that Trump has an “open invitation” to come on to his show, despite the fact that he’s refused repeatedly. “I don’t think he really hates me, because I think he… the amount of times that he goes after me, he watches the show.” “‘Accidentally,'” Maher continued, “it’s always ‘accidentally’ — he watches it accidentally every week. It’s amazing.” Trump has made a regular habit of watching — and then complaining about — Maher’s show. In March he lashed out after Maher devoted a significant portion of his monologue to the former president. “Bill Maher is the worst!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He never got it, and never will. Bad ratings, a big fail on CNN shot, major case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” He was back at it last month after Maher interview Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump returned to Truth Social and wrote, “I actually watched, first time in a long time, ratings challenged Bill Maher’s really boring interview with RFK Jr. last night, only to find that Junior’ is far more LIBERAL than Maher and, in fact, far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat, including [Cornel] West and [Jill] Stein.” “Yet despite this, he has no hope as a Democrat because they were able to use their typically Fascist tactics of repression and throw him out of the Party, like a dog, because he was taking primary votes away from the worst President in the history of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden,” he added. Watch the interview with Maher in the video above. The post Bill Maher Explains Why He Believes Donald Trump Is ‘Literally Crazy’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

al.com Sean Payton on Bo Nix: ‘Like watching a good golfer’ Published: May. 13, 2024, 8:00 a.m. 4–5 minutes Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix passes at rookie minicamp on Saturday, May 11, 2024, in Centennial, Colo.(AP Photo/David Zalubowski) By Mark Inabinett | minabinett@al.com Was Denver Broncos quarterback Sean Payton watching rookie quarterback Bo Nix on the football field or the links this weekend? “It’s almost like watching a good golfer,” Payton said about Nix at the NFL team’s rookie minicamp on Saturday. “Sometimes when you watch his game over two years, there’s a patience to how he plays, the ball comes out. I don’t want to use the term boring. That’s not the right term. But pretty good decisions with each play, the efficiency and how he’s operating – all of that.” NFL announces its season-opening game for 2024 NFL rookie Kool-Aid McKinstry buys car for his mother Former Alabama cornerback returns to NFL with Pittsburgh Steelers Nix got his first work with the Broncos at the minicamp after joining the team as the 12th selection in the NFL Draft on April 25. “I wish I played golf that way, like I play quarterback,” Nix said on Saturday. “But I think it’s all a part of an operation and preparation, literally kind of dumb it down, make it as simple as possible. Know where your eyes are supposed to go; know where your reads are. Get your eyes on them and then go through it quickly. It’s just preparation, studying and being around, obviously, coaches that are going to teach you the same stuff over and over and over, and just learning it all, and then going out there and doing it on the field.” A former Pinson Valley High School and Auburn standout, Nix came to Denver after two seasons at Oregon. Nix finished third in the voting for the Heisman Trophy in 2023, when he set an NCAA FBS single-season record by completing 77.45 percent of his passes and school records with 4,508 passing yards and 45 touchdown passes for the Ducks. Nix joined Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson as the quarterbacks on Denver’s roster. The second pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Wilson started 33 games for the New York Jets before coming to the Broncos in an offseason trade. Also a former Auburn quarterback, Stidham started the final two games of the 2023 season for Denver. “We said it to them at the start: All of us are behind,” Payton said about rookie minicamp. “We’re behind the team relative to where they’re at, both from a conditioning standpoint but also mentally. And we’re not going to get there in a day or two days, but the objective is to get there soon in time for training camp. He’s handling the install well. He had a pretty good practice today. He’s grinding through it. He’s doing a good job with it. … “Oftentimes your first exposure to huddles, snap counts, verbiage – that can be challenging, but I thought he threw it well today.” Payton is preparing for his 17th season as an NFL head coach and, Nix said, “has built a pedigree to where when he talks, you listen.” “It’s a day-to-day process,” Nix said. “You got to go from one meeting to one practice to one walkthrough, take them one at a time and just learn as much as you can and just not make the same mistake twice. … “It’s all about studying. It’s all about taking one play at a time, mastering it, make sure you know the fundamental technique of that play, what the play-caller’s intent is, and essentially they just want to see you go out and execute it. It’s my job as a quarterback to get the play started and get the ball where it’s supposed to be given. A lot of that’s completing passes, run-game operation. “It can be a lot, but I feel like I’m being taught really well by the coaches. They’re doing a really good job of narrowing everything down and making it simple so I can just get up there and process and play fast.” FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.

al.com Where is Auburn softball heading for the NCAA Tournament? Updated: May. 12, 2024, 6:51 p.m.|Published: May. 12, 2024, 6:50 p.m. 2–3 minutes Auburn Tigers Sports Auburn softball heading to Tallahassee Regional for NCAA Tournament Despite a first-round exit in the SEC Tournament earlier in the week, the dance continues for Auburn softball, which is set to head to the Tallahassee Regional, the Tigers learned Sunday night during the NCAA Selection Show. Auburn will open its hopeful NCAA Tournament run with a matchup against UCF on Friday afternoon at 1 p.m. Should the Tigers beat the Knights on Friday, they’ll move on to see the winner of Florida State-Chattanooga. On the other hand, should Auburn drop its tournament-opener against UCF, it’ll see the loser of Florida State-Chattanooga in a game that could send the Tigers home. Because the regional round is double-elimination, the Tigers will need to lose a pair of games to be eliminated from the tournament and sent back home to Auburn. In heading to the Tallahassee Regional, hosted by 15th-seeded Florida State, the Tigers have are set to appear in their 19th NCAA Tournament in program history. This year’s draw also marks the third time the Tigers have been sent to Tallahassee for a regional after previously making visits in 2018 and 2021. Auburn punched its ticket to the big dance after compiling a 27-19-1 (9-15 SEC) record this season. The Tigers are coming off a brief appearance in the SEC Tournament, which ended with the Tigers getting bounced in the first round after dropping a 14-inning thriller to Georgia. Here’s a quick look at the teams joining Auburn in the Tallahassee regional: Florida State: 43-14, 19-5 ACC Chattanooga: 42-14, 16-5 SoCon UCF: 30-23, 12-15 Big 12 If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

you do not come around enough cbo............

if thorne does not ball out it is on him now as we have given him a better line and receivers. his stats before he got hurt were pretty dang good. i hope he repeats that.............

thanx but i seldom have time to read what i post since i post so much but thanx for reading!

thanx i just woke up and had one sip of coffee..............

al.com Former Auburn LB Wesley Steiner signs with Washington State Updated: May. 11, 2024, 1:58 p.m.|Published: May. 11, 2024, 1:58 p.m. 2–3 minutes Wesley Steiner: Vulnerable Strength After reportedly entering the transfer portal at the end of April, former Auburn linebacker Wesley Steiner has committed to and signed with Washington State, the program announced Friday night. Steiner visited Pullman, Washington, earlier in the week, according to the Washington State 247Sports page. Steiner played four seasons at Auburn beginning in fall 2020 when he arrived as a freshman former four-star recruit. He had 86 career tackles from 2020-2023 including 46 in 2022. His playing time and production decreased significantly in 2023, and Auburn retained both of its starting linebackers from last season in Eugene Asante and Austin Keys. Auburn also added Duke transfer linebacker Dorian Mausi and is bringing in several freshmen including four-star recruit Demarcus Riddick. Steiner has one remaining year of eligibility. Washington State is joining the Mountain West Conference this fall as one of the castoffs following the breakup of the PAC-12. Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA all went to the Big Ten. Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah are heading to the Big 12. Stanford and Cal are going to the ACC. Oregon State, the other cast off in the departure for major conferences, is joining the West Coast Conference. Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

hugh?

Trump Campaign Hid Settlements With Women, New Complaint Says Roger Sollenberger, William Bredderman Fri, May 10, 2024 at 4:34 PM CDT·6 min read 649 Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP via Getty A sex discrimination lawsuit against Donald Trump’s campaign has triggered new accusations that Trump’s lawyers have intentionally covered up settlement payments to women, in violation of federal law. On Friday, watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, demanding an investigation into the alleged cover-up. The complaint cites new allegations from 2016 Trump campaign aide A.J. Delgado, which she lodged in a sworn court declaration earlier this week as part of her ongoing discrimination suit against Trump’s political operation. Delgado’s filing presented evidence of top Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz openly admitting that the campaign wanted to use a law firm to cover up a potential settlement payout in 2017. The arrangement, as Delgado described it, appears specifically designed to evade the consequences of federal disclosure laws that require campaigns to publicly report the identities of payment recipients. Ex-Trump Staffer A.J. Delgado Now Says Her Boss, Jason Miller, Raped Her “In other words, the payment would be routed through a middleman, to hide the fact that the Campaign had settled, from the public and the FEC,” Delgado stated. “I thus have direct, personal experience with the Defendant-Campaign hiding settlement payments to women, routing them through a ‘middleman law firm,’ which to the public would only appear as payments ‘for legal services.’” Delgado also claimed to have “information and reason to believe” that other campaign payments have hidden settlements with women “who raised complaints of gender discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and sexual harassment.” Those payments, she said, are related to the $4.1 million that flowed to Kasowitz’s law firm over a two-month period immediately following the November 2020 election, as well as millions in mysterious legal reimbursements to the campaign’s compliance firm, Red Curve Solutions, which The Daily Beast first reported earlier this month, prompting a federal complaint. The declaration is particularly significant in that it captures a direct admission of the campaign’s actual intentions behind this middleman arrangement—to keep the existence of a settlement from the public, and, by doing so, from the FEC itself. In a statement to The Daily Beast, CREW president Noah Bookbinder demanded an investigation, saying that Delgado’s allegations raise serious concerns about a potentially illegal cover-up. “The allegations made in AJ Delgado’s declaration paint a deeply troubling picture of potentially illegal activity carried out by Donald Trump’s campaign. The FEC must conduct an investigation to determine the validity of these claims and establish the degree to which any wrongdoing occurred,” Bookbinder said. Why Did Top Trump Aide Jason Miller Suddenly Quit? The statement added that the public has the right to know how political money is spent, and “schemes to hide that information undercut Americans’ faith in our political system.” “Donald Trump’s admission of using pass-through payments to hide their purpose and protect his political prospects makes it even more important that the FEC investigate. No candidate or campaign is above the law, not even Trump,” the statement continued. The Daily Beast sent comment requests to the Trump campaign and Delgado, but did not receive a reply. In a statement, a Kasowitz Benson Torres spokesperson wrote: “Ms. Delgado’s accusations that there were FEC violations or that the firm acted as a ‘middleman’ to ‘hid[e] settlement payments to women’ from the Campaign are pure fantasy and false.” Delgado’s statements come as she pursues a sex discrimination lawsuit against the 2016 campaign, where she served as a senior adviser but was back-seated when she revealed that she had become pregnant. (The father was Delgado’s then-supervisor and top Trump 2024 adviser Jason Miller, whom Delgado has also accused of raping her—a claim Miller denies.) Delgado, a Harvard Law grad who is representing herself in the case, claims the campaign sidelined her specifically because she was pregnant, and is seeking damages for unlawful discrimination. The Daily Beast reported last week that Trump’s previous lawyers in the Delgado case have bailed on him. The firm—LaRocca, Hornik, Greenberg, Kittredge, Carlin & McPartland—has defended Trump in other high-profile cases against women, including E. Jean Carroll, but the attorneys told the court last week that they were withdrawing, citing “an irreparable breakdown” in their relationship with the Trump campaign. According to Delgado’s declaration, during her brief 2017 settlement negotiations with the campaign—which, according to Delgado, the campaign ultimately reneged—Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz expressed to her that “Trump and the Campaign would need to keep this confidential” because Trump “is known for ‘not settling.’” That proposal caught the attention of Delgado’s own lawyers, who raised the issue of federal disclosure laws. Trump’s Lawyers Want to Bail on His Sex Discrimination Suit “My attorneys expressed this would not be possible because disbursements by a Campaign are public record,” the declaration said. Kasowitz, however, “dismissed the concerns easily,” Delgado said, telling her that disclosure was “not a problem at all,” and, “what we would do is the campaign pays me and then I cut a check to you guys.” Now, Delgado is alleging that Kasowitz has funneled Trump campaign money to other women making discrimination claims. In all, Kasowitz’s firm has received about $4.5 million from the Trump campaign, almost all of it coming in the two months after the 2020 election. In that time, FEC records show, the campaign issued three massive payments to Kasowitz in flat dollar amounts—$600,000 on Nov. 11, $1 million on Dec. 18, and $2.5 million on Jan. 13, 2021. Delgado now claims that those payments are related to complaints of gender discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and sexual harassment. (At the time, Kasowitz served as Trump’s counsel in the opening stages of E. Jean Carroll’s first sexual assault lawsuit.) Delgado also says that some of the mysterious legal reimbursements to Trump’s campaign finance compliance firm, Red Curve, appear related to discrimination complaints. (Red Curve does not provide any actual legal services.) The Daily Beast uncovered those payments this month, prompting nonprofit watchdog Campaign Legal Center to file an FEC complaint alleging that the Trump team was obscuring the nature of those payments. As The Daily Beast previously reported, Trump has a history of shielding payouts behind law firms, including his 2016 campaign. That practice has continued through this year, with his Save America leadership PAC reporting a $392,638 “legal consulting” expense to Trump attorney Alina Habba on Valentine’s Day—the exact dollar amount that Trump was ordered to pay to The New York Times after losing his defamation case the month prior. How to Pay Off a Porn Star (If You Really Must) The CREW complaint also notes that Delgado’s claims overlap with recent events—the 2016 hush-money payments currently at the center of Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan. “The use of pass-throughs to hide the true purpose of payments is not unfamiliar to Mr. Trump and his businesses,” the complaint states. “For example, Mr. Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, for payments made to ‘catch and kill’ a story concerning Mr. Trump’s alleged extramarital relations.” CREW also notes that Trump himself made recent public remarks about that case, confirming his belief that “payments routed through attorneys could be marked ‘legal expenses’ even if they were reimbursements for expenses paid to third parties.” “Regardless of what Mr. Trump may have experienced in the business world, federal law does not permit a political committee to report any expense routed through an attorney or any other intermediary as a payment to the intermediary for ‘legal expenses’ or otherwise,” the complaint states. “Rather, federal law requires political committees provide detailed and truthful information about who they are paying and why they are paying them, even if doing so would reveal facts embarrassing to the campaign such as the settlement of legal claims,” the complaint states. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.

Trump’s Sleazy $1 Billion Shakedown of Oil Execs Gives Dems an Opening Greg Sargent Sat, May 11, 2024 at 5:00 AM CDT·6 min read 407 Ever since Donald Trump descended that golden escalator in 2015, a central tenet of his bond with his supporters has been a simple promise to them: I have seen elite corruption and self-dealing from the inside, and I will put that know-how to work for you. During that campaign, for instance, Trump could boast that not paying taxes “makes me smart,” knowing supporters would hear it in exactly those terms. More recently he has told the MAGA masses that in facing multiple criminal prosecutions, “I am being indicted for you,” as if he’s bravely journeying into the belly of the corrupt system mainly to expose how it’s victimized them. A new Washington Post report that Trump made explicit policy promises to a roomful of Big Oil executives—while urging them to raise $1 billion for his campaign—is a powerful story in part because it wrecks what’s left of that mystique. In case you didn’t already know this, it shows yet again that if Trump has employed that aforementioned knowledge of elite corruption and self-dealing to any ends in his public career, it’s chiefly to benefit himself. That counter narrative is a story that Democrats have a big opportunity to tell—if they seize on this news effectively. How might they do that? For starters, the revelations seem to cry out for more scrutiny from Congress. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has been presiding over hearings into the oil industry as chair of the Budget Committee, says it’s “highly likely” that the committee will examine the new revelations. “This is practically an invitation to ask more questions,” Whitehouse told me, describing this as a “natural extension of the investigation already underway.” There’s plenty to explore. As the Post reports, an oil company executive at the gathering, held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last month, complained about environmental regulations under the Biden administration. Then this happened: Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation. Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people. Obviously industries have long donated to politicians in both parties in hopes of governance that takes their interests into account, and they explicitly lobby for this as well. But in this case, Trump may have made detailed, concrete promises while simultaneously soliciting a precise amount in campaign contributions. For instance, the Post reports, Trump vowed to scrap Biden’s ban on permits for new liquefied natural gas experts “on the first day.” He also promised to overturn new tailpipe emission limits designed to encourage the transition to electric vehicles, and he dangled more leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, “a priority that several of the executives raised.” “The phrase that instantly came to mind as I was reading the story was ‘quid pro quo,’” Whitehouse told me. He also pointed to a new Politico report that oil industry officials are drawing up executive orders for Trump to sign as president. “Put those things together and it starts to look mighty damn corrupt,” Whitehouse said. So what would be the legislative aim of a congressional inquiry into all this, and what might it look like? One argument is that knowing what transpired between those executives and Trump could inform an analysis of what’s wrong with our campaign finance laws—and how to fix them, says Noah Bookbinder, president for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The rub here is this: It’s likely that what transpired between the executives and Trump is perfectly legal. It may not have risen to a solicitation of something of value directly in exchange for an official act. But determining whether it was as egregious as it seems, and examining how it may be permissible under current laws, would illuminate the gaping problems with them, Bookbinder noted. “There’s a clear legislative purpose in determining what happened at the meeting,” Bookbinder said. If this really constituted “an attempt to link significant campaign contributions with specific policy promises,” Bookbinder continued, “that suggests a huge loophole that needs to be closed.” Or, as Fred Wertheimer, the president of the watchdog group Democracy 21, told me, this episode “certainly looks like an offer of an exchange of policy for money.” Given that this was probably legal, Wertheimer added, Congress could “look at this as an example of what kind of corrupt campaign finance system exists today.” Such a move could have second-order political effects. Republicans understand that when they use their power in Congress to kick up a lot of noise about something, it induces the media to make more of it than they otherwise might. Democrats could apply that lesson here. Democrats could also highlight this affair as a clear indication of Trump’s broader priorities. This would entail pointing out that Trump has vowed to roll back Biden’s whole decarbonization agenda, meaning he’d cancel billions of dollars in subsidies and tax incentives fueling a manufacturing renaissance in green energy. This boom is happening in red areas, too: As Ron Brownstein reports, new Brookings Institution data shows that counties that backed Trump in 2020 are reaping outsize gains—including investments and jobs—from the transition to electric vehicles. Yet Trump would like to see all this reversed, and he’s apparently dangling this before fossil fuel donors while demanding enormous campaign contributions from them. Making this all even more sordid, recall that Trump is channeling millions in donor money to high-priced lawyers who are defending him against multiple criminal prosecutions. “Hundreds of thousands of good clean energy jobs have been announced, and whole communities are being revitalized as factories are being rebuilt,” Jesse Lee, a Democratic strategist who advises various climate groups, told me. “Trump is promising to crush it all in exchange for a $1 billion check from oil companies to pay his legal fees.” Trump also recently promised billionaire donors he’d keep their taxes low at another recent gala. As The Atlantic’s David Graham details, Trump has long presented himself as an outsider—despite being a billionaire himself—by purporting to speak traitor-to-his-class blunt truths about how the rich buy politicians. This was always a transparent scam. Yet it seems even harder to sustain now that Trump has apparently placed himself at the center of that very same scam so conspicuously, making his own corrupt self-dealing as explicit as one could imagine. If elected, Trump would throw into reverse our transition to a decarbonized future, one that’s creating untold numbers of manufacturing jobs—including in the very places that Trump has attacked Democratic elites for supposedly abandoning—all in exchange for mega-checks from chortling fat cats right out of the most garish of Gilded Age cartoons. For good measure, some of that loot could help Trump secure elite impunity for his own corruption and alleged crimes. We can’t say we weren’t warned. Trump has told us all this himself.

another slow football days folks........

al.com Hugh Freeze says he couldn’t bring himself to spend $1 million on a QB Updated: May. 10, 2024, 8:22 a.m.|Published: May. 10, 2024, 6:35 a.m. 4–5 minutes How is Auburn 5-star Cam Coleman handling the hype? He’s received heavy criticism for it, but Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze has continued to stand behind and support quarterback Payton Thorne. His case is heavy on the belief that if he can surround Thorne with better talent among wide receivers — which Freeze feels he has done — then the quarterback in his second year at Auburn can be more successful. “I believe in our quarterback room,” Freeze said Wednesday on Greg McElroy and Cole Cubelic’s radio show while at the Regions Tradition in Birmingham. “I believe in Kent Austin. I believe that if you have the right pieces around Peyton that we can have success. I think you saw some glimpses of that. I don’t think we had a really total package around him really.” Freeze added seven new scholarship receivers around Thorne including four freshmen and three transfers. But that route, Freeze said, was because he wanted to focus Auburn’s Name, Image and Likeness resources on bringing more pieces in for the whole offense instead of dumping a massive sum on a new quarterback. “The options that you are presented with: develop Payton, develop Holden (Geriner), develop Hank (Brown) develop Walker (White) or go spend a million dollars on this guy,” Freeze said. “And I just couldn’t bring myself to doing that.” His comment is referencing the bidding wars and large NIL deals often handed out as recruitment for top quarterbacks in the transfer portal. Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule has previously said publicly that it costs upwards of $1 million to land a good transfer quarterback. NIL has become an ever-increasing factor in recruiting, especially at the position that will garner the most attention, pressure and scrutiny. The recruiting coverage website On3 has created a metric for projecting a player’s NIL value. It is not a number that equates to the actual value of deals a player has agreed to, but across all college sports, seven fo the top 10 highest-valued players are quarterbacks. Auburn was never a serious contender for a transfer quarterback this offseason. It was linked to a few big names, including Cam Ward (who eventually committed to Miami) and former Freeze QB Kaidon Salter (who opted to stay at Liberty). Freeze has been steadfast that he didn’t want to bring in a new quarterback or transfer at any position that he felt uncomfortable with. He has been tentative about the transfer portal during his time at Auburn, not fully in favor of the quick movement that is required compared to the long-term relationships of high school recruitments. Freeze has been much more inclined to build his program from high school players instead of a collection of transfers. Though Freeze may stick with Thorne, who is in his final year with Auburn, that doesn’t mean he would be unwilling to spend big money in the future if the right situation arose. “I wanted to put all the pieces together,” Freeze said. “Now, I’m not saying I won’t do that in time, but just currently, I think (Thorne) has proven, I’ve watched his Michigan State tape a thousand times and he had two NFL receivers there. He was pretty dang good.” Auburn had the SEC’s worst passing offense last season by yards per game. The 162.2 yards per game Auburn passed for last season was ranked 121st out of 130 FBS teams. Freeze has not officially declared Thorne as the starter for next season but has essentially done everything but. He has said the job is Thorne’s to lose, while not shutting down competition from the top three other scholarship quarterbacks on the roster. Freeze’s biggest waiver on Thorne heading into next season came immediately after the Music City Bowl in December where Auburn lost to Maryland 31-13 and Thorne passed for just 84 yards on 27 attempts. But Thorne has never lost his spot as Auburn’s top quarterback throughout spring practices. Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

al.com Auburn baseball eliminated from postseason contention with 5 games to play Published: May. 10, 2024, 9:33 p.m. 3–4 minutes AUBURN, AL - MAY 03 - The Auburn Baseball Team during the game between the Auburn Tigers and the Ole Miss Rebels at Plainsman Park in Auburn, AL on Friday, May 3, 2024. Photo by David Gray/Auburn TigersDavid Gray/Auburn Tigers With five SEC games still to play, Auburn baseball has been eliminated from postseason contention after it blew a five-run lead and lost to Missouri 12-11 Friday night. It’s the mathematical end to a frustrating and disappointing season. Auburn was ranked or received votes in several preseason polls this year. Early in the season, Auburn climbed into the D1 Baseball top 25 poll, the most widely accepted college baseball rankings. But the season spiraled once SEC play began for Auburn against Vanderbilt in March. Auburn has played eight SEC series and lost all of them. It has been swept four times. Auburn’s SEC record is now 4-21. Auburn’s program record for SEC losses is 22 in 2016, Butch Thompson’s first season as Auburn’s head coach. This is the sixth season in program history Auburn has lost 20 or more SEC games. The most detrimental faults for Auburn were inconsistent and unreliable pitching. Midway through SEC play, Auburn had a team ERA above nine in SEC games, more than a run worse than any other team. Allowing six total runs in the 7th and 8th inning to Missouri — the other team on track to miss the SEC Tournament this year — and in turn blowing a five-run lead is a quite symbolic way for Auburn to see its postseason hopes end. Over the second half of the SEC schedule, the pitching improved and Auburn’s team ERA decreased by more than a run and Ole Miss surpassed Auburn for the worst team ERA in SEC games. But as the pitching made steps forward, Auburn’s lineup tailed off due to injuries and poor performance. After a Saturday loss to Ole Miss, Auburn’s two most productive hitters — Ike Irish and Cooper McMurray — had a combined one hit in their last nearly 50 at bats against SEC teams. How Auburn will close the season now will be with an eye to the future. Thompson has emphasized this season has been difficult and focused on maintaining a group that will not quit on the season, even with nothing to play for at this point. Thompson will likely keep shuffling his lineup and pitching to see what his best options might be going ahead into next season. Auburn has several key pieces of its lineup in place, but the pitching staff needs to find a reliable or go-to option. Whether that answer is on this roster as it stands remains to be seen. Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.