This is an opinion column.

Pearl retired. Pearl hired.

How does Auburn basketball knock football from the headlines on the most unlikely day? That’s how.

We’re talking 40-or-so hours after the SEC admitted it bungled a ruling that cost Auburn football 7 points in a game it lost by 7 points.

Just hours after the future of the SEC football scheduling structure leaked , the job-juggling Pearls snatched the spotlight.

No risk of a sack here, father cleanly handed off to son in what was a predictable outcome. A transfer of power from Bruce Pearl to Steven Pearl was the whisper all summer as Auburn’s basketball coach of 11 transformative years mulled a run for the United States Senate.

Part of that scenario became reality on a busy Monday in the thick of football season.

Bruce Pearl’s r

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