“But you were born under a bad sign with a blue moon in your eyes.” – Rob Spragg from the band Alabama 3

Sports curses have always seemed to be more at home in the world of baseball.

You have the curse of the Bambino when it took the Boston Red Sox 84 years to win the World Series after trading Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.

You also have curses connected to both of Chicago’s Major League Baseball teams.

The White Sox franchise was finally able to work its way out of postseason purgatory by winning it all in 2005 – a long time after its 1919 team allegedly threw the World Series in order to receive compensation from underworld gambling interests.

The Cubs might have had the strangest curse. A Chicago tavern owner brought his pet goat to the 1945 World Series. According to Cubs lore, the goat’s owner cursed the team after both he and his goat were asked to leave Wrigley Field when other fans complained. The Cubs finally broke through and won the 2016 World Series.

I am not one to buy into curses, signs or any other manner of hoodoo, but as I thought about the short tenure of now-former Auburn football coach Hugh Freeze in the Sunday morning hours leading up to his inevitable job termination, fate seemed to intervene to oppose his success at Auburn whenever it could.

This season it was noticeable in the bizarre refereeing decisions in games against Oklahoma and Georgia. The refereeing in the latter was so egregious the SEC suspended the crew chief for the remainder of the season, according to reporting by Yellowhammer News and ESPN.

Last season’s woes piled up due to agonizing near misses in execution on the field.

A dropped touchdown pass at Missouri, a poor pass to a wide receiver who had slipped behind the defense against Oklahoma resulting in a pick six, and multiple missed field goals from a freshman kicker who was unexpectedly thrust into the job all doomed Auburn’s chances to win close games.

And back in Freeze’s first year, a so-so regular season was on the verge of ending on the highest of highs until a miracle 31-yard touchdown pass on fourth down by Alabama left Auburn fans feeling the lowest of lows.

Really, the only game Freeze seemed to have fortune smile upon him was last year’s Texas A&M game where an open Aggie receiver dropped an easy pass that would have sent the game to a fifth overtime.

Now with all excuses and caveats laid bare, did Freeze deserve the additional time for which he was asking to steer the ocean liner that is Auburn football back on course? No. Frankly, firing Freeze was the only viable option available to Auburn athletic director John Cohen.

By most accounts Freeze was successful in mending the numerous frayed relationships with Auburn stakeholders the previous coach left behind and in building back a collapsed player recruiting operation.

Nevertheless, he failed spectacularly in his attempt to install the fun, high-scoring offense Auburn fans expected due to his reputation as an offensive savant.

Most maddening to Auburn fans is the current offense somehow looks even worse than it did before Freeze came to Auburn despite Auburn possessing more potent weapons than it has had in years.

The fans’ angst was punctuated by Freeze’s offense mustering only three points against a Kentucky team previously winless in SEC games and sporting a defense that had been scorched for 56 points the preceding Saturday.

Nearly three years into Freeze’s tenure, there was only one place left to lay the blame for failure.

Now it will be up to defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin, whose players’ exceptional efforts have been largely wasted by the offense’s woes, to pick up the fallen standard.

Durkin will try to divert Auburn’s trajectory away from a fifth consecutive losing season – a streak not seen at Auburn since 1946-50.

Perhaps Freeze was merely a victim of the curse of Malzahn. The losing seasons started after Gus Malzahn was fired back in 2020 after all. So the question becomes how can we exorcise it?

I doubt many of my Auburn brothers and sisters would get behind rehiring Malzahn. Maybe instead we can invite him to visit campus, sprinkle some Cammy Cam Juice around Pat Dye Field and have Chris Davis run from end zone to end zone.

Whatever is decided, if Malzahn ever brings a goat, sheep, water buffalo or any other species of herd animal to campus, let him take it wherever he wants for goodness’ sake.