Aubserver Mailbag 56: What would a successful offseason look like for Auburn football?

This week: Recruiting expectations, the Birmingham Bowl, Allen Flanigan, Jabari Smith, Christmas music, wrestling books and MVP awards

(Todd Van Emst/Auburn Athletics)

For a while, it looked like this week was going to be flooded with football news. The transfer portal is racking up the numbers, the coaching carousel is spinning wildly, and the early signing period is rapidly approaching.

Instead, this week felt like a brief cooldown before things heat up again — and that extends to basketball, where the Tigers will come back from finals to face Nebraska in Atlanta on Saturday.

It’s been a time to collect and look ahead, and that tone carried into the questions for this week’s Mailbag. You asked big-picture questions about the offseason for Bryan Harsin’s team, big-picture questions about the rest of the season for Bruce Pearl’s team and quite a few about Christmas music.

I didn’t have time to get to every question this week, so apologies if yours didn’t make the cut this time around. (There was a particularly great question from Jonny about players serving as recruiters for their fellow targets that I loved but didn’t …