Takeaways: Must-read transparency from Hugh Freeze on the state of the Auburn program, the Iron Bowl loss, roster movement and more
AUBURN — Two days after Auburn’s heartbreaking and shocking last-minute loss to No. 8 Alabama, head coach Hugh Freeze met the media inside the Woltosz Performance Center to talk about the 6-6 season that was and what’s to come.
“I just want to revisit Saturday night, which in my opinion, was the best college football atmosphere I’ve ever experienced. I want our fans and supporters and band and cheerleaders and everybody that provide that type of atmosphere for our young men to play in, and for us to coach in, thank you. It was incredible,” Freeze said.
“It was off-the-charts good. It’s the best home atmosphere in the country. That was incredible and thank you to the Auburn Tiger family. It will forever be a regret that we didn’t get to celebrate after it. I would have enjoyed that, it would have been nice.”
Freeze said despite the loss, there’s nothing more he could have asked for in terms of passion and effort from his players in the game.
“I think our kids played with the type of passion, energy and physicality that you have to play with top team sin the country. As hurt as we are, as hurt as our kids are, this team isn’t getting better right now from losing the Iron Bowl when you have a real shot and should have won the game, but that’s something that has laid a foundation. We played three top-10 teams within a touchdown with a first-year roster.
“The consistency we have to seek to find is get that every single game. I’m proud of the effort and the game plan was good. I wish it would have ended a bit differently and we would all be feeling a lot better. There’s still a lot of hurt. This game means so much and we let it slip away. There’s a lot to build on.”
Read more from Freeze below:
Freeze believes Auburn’s turnaround can be a quick one.
“The recruits saw what can be, and it can be pretty fast. We have to take the positives from this and go recruit to this great university. We have great commitments that we hopefully can hold onto. We have to recruit the current roster, that’s the world we’re in. We have to get all of the NFL information and give our kids the best information to make the wisest decisions. Whatever it takes to enhance our roster so that are better able to have depth and compete with more consistency next year. I’m excited, but still heartbroken over Saturday evening. I’m more determined than ever and more confident than ever that this place can be an elite college football program.”
Freeze was asked about his headspace as the leader of the Auburn program after ending the season with two straight losses.
“I never went to sleep, so I didn’t wake up. This profession, we sign up for it and it’s difficult. I try to keep things in great perspective on why we coach and I have to preach that to myself after losses like the last few because we truly are, my window of coaching in the spectrum of life, is pretty small. What I do with that window matters long after football is over. I know fans and media and coaches, all of it live and die with every game, but if you look at the big spectrum, we’re pouring into the people in this program the right things. You try and get comfort in that. It’s hard. You run through every single play that could have made a difference. Do you do anything different? You’re going to relive all of that. I didn’t sleep at all.
“It means so much to so many people. When you care, you want to deliver. When you don’t, you aren’t going to sleep very much. I watched the film several times. As disappointing and hurtful as it is, it also, if you’re made of the right stuff, it makes you really determined to get in those situations again and go get some players that want to do it with you. To say you wake up on Sunday morning and it’s all over in your mind and your spirit, that’s not real. It’s still not over, truthfully, but I’m a fighter and so are these kids and so is this staff. Time makes things a little better and you are encouraged you found a way to compete with an elite program in year one.”
DJ James was one of the last players off the field on Saturday night. James made two pass breakups in the game, one in the end zone earlier, but of course, was the culprit of allowing the game-winning touchdown for Alabama. Freeze said he spent a lot of time with he and Koy Moore following the game.
“I wish I had the words for him. I tried hard. I sat at his locker with him for awhile, he and Koy. It’s just tough. This world can be brutal. I get it on coaches, they are going to be brutal on me...you hate to see it when young men who are playing the game get attacked, I hate that. I think those people are, well, those people need to get a life and a perspective. No one hurt more than Koy and DJ. Truthfully, in the scheme we were in in that play, DJ will get all the criticism, but truthfully, there should have been someone else standing there with him to help him also. It’s not just him, even though he’s feeling the weight of it.
“His words in the locker room were, ‘coach, I let you down, I let you down.’ He felt that because of that play, and also right before half he didn’t get the call and the long TD pass, so he felt the weight of the world on him. I told him he’d get through it and we love you. In time, if handled right, it makes him stronger.”
Following more time to watch film and contemplate, Freeze discussed in detail the muffed punt that set Alabama up for their game-winning drive and the 4th-and-31 touchdown pass with 43 seconds left.
**Of note, sources on staff pointed towards an injured ankle for Scott, while Scott himself told Auburn Live he pulled his hamstring plays before the punt happened. Freeze says below it was a shoulder. Bottom line, he was injured and not able to return the punt in the moment.
“The punt, I don’t know what discussion you can have. Keionte (Scott) dings his shoulder on third down and goes to the training room, so you put your back up in. He’s been solid all year at doing that. I didn’t know that in the moment, but you have to play backups at times. The last thing oyu want to do in that moment is let them pin us back on the 5-yard line with their three timeouts. Koy has been solid all year at catching punts. Something happened with his footing it looked like and it’s one of those awful plays that I think we win the game if we catch that punt. Koy has been dependable as can be. There’s no discussion there. Keionte is out and you put your next guy in there. We trust Koy to do his job and unfortunately, we had a bad break there.”
(On the 4th-and-31) “We had a lot of discussion on that because we had a timeout and saw what they were in. They were in empty, so your choices are do we rush him and if you do, we haven’t got him on the ground very much and he can scramble around and you’ll have a bunch of one-on-ones back there. You can do that and one of their guys goes up and makes a play. Or, you can drop everybody and play five under and three deep, and play vision on the ball and knock the ball down because it has to go to the end zone. That’s the choice we made. I can show you still shots, I took pictures of every still shot from the 10-yard line in and we’re in perfect position. We have three over two, so either we didn’t coach it well enough or we didn’t execute it well enough. It’s probably a combination of both. It’s something we work every Thursday and those were our two options and that’s what we went with. We didn’t play with vision on the ball.”
Freeze and the Auburn program are measured in wins and losses. Saturday’s game against Alabama resulted in a loss, but there were other positives to take from the day moving forward.
“Everything but the win, that would have been huge. The recruits see it. The battles are never over when you’re talking about battling for the top guys in the country, but for them to have that as an experience is certainly a positive for us. I don’t know that they’ve been to a game that’s quite like that. I think it was a step in the right direction for us to get to the finish line for us to get to the finish line with some guys.”
In the new world of college football, players deciding to opt out of bowl games is a popular trend. It’s something Freeze says he battles with because of his mindset of finishing what you started. How will Freeze handle those discussions?
“This is new to me. I’ve never, didn’t have a single kid at Ole Miss, didn’t have a single kid do that — at Liberty, didn’t either, but I left before the last one, but that’s a difficult deal for me. I always believe you finish. You finish with your team, we signed up for this. However, every situation is a little different. I’m going to have to put alot of thought and prayer, and seek wisdom, if that becomes a case here. There are kids that will move on from here and our people need to know that. That’s the world we live in. Do you take to the bowl game those guys who are choosing to do that? Do you not? You certainly need to have some numbers, you want to do well and prepare well, so you have to have some numbers to do that. That’s a very, very, every coach would say — this is my first experience with it, believe it or not. I’ll be learning through the process myself.”
What will Auburn’s roster look like next season? How many players will Freeze and co. sign in the 2024 class? The transfer portal? Freeze still isn’t sure how it will all play out.
“I don’t think there’s any possible way any coach can sit here and tell you how he’s going to come up with his 85. I’d love to sit here and tell you we’re going to build it with high school kids...I’d love to say that, but this week if I have 10 guys walk in and say they’re going to transfer and I haven’t been recruiting enough high school kids, it’s impossible to say that. I have no idea how the makeup of the 85 will look in what we have to replace. Do we have to replace just 22? Do we have to replace 32? None of us know. I think that’s become the biggest challenge for us coaches is how do we even manage the 85.
“It will take you all the way through spring and summer to figure that out because of the way the portal windows are set up. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that this portal window we’re getting ready to have is as long as it is. It makes no sense. We have to go through Christmas worrying about people tampering with players on your team. Either they know they are going or they’re not. Give them December 1 through the 10th, make your decision and move on. This idea of this long portal window, it wasn’t made by anybody having to live it, I can assure you.”
And on the topic of re-recruiting your own roster, how will Freeze handle those conversations?
“Only way I know how to be is totally transparent. Tell them the truth. The truth for some is your chances to play here are probably slim. The truth for others is there’s an element of patience that needs to be involved in your decision. If you could just be patient and not listen to the voices that want immediate gratification or certainly, you have the money aspect that’s involved in all of this now. You should choose the place and the culture and environment that’s going to shape you for the long term, the long haul. I think everything is better when you are in that environment yourself. Some need to have patience and other discussions will be truthful with how we see you fitting into this roster.”
One year after being hired, how much has Freeze learned about Auburn? Does this program have what it takes to win a national title in short order?
“I am absolutely, positively, totally convinced this place can be an elite program. Being en elite program in this conference, there’s some others too. Thinking you are going to win every single game, probably not. I don’t know many teams that will do that anymore, truthfully. We should be in every game. This place, the support it has, the energy and culture, the family feel, the administration alignment, everything, the facilities, everything is here for us to build, and I say build, these things don’t happen overnight, but for Auburn to be a championship team.
“It’s here. We can do it. I think it’s important that we recruit young men that understand they are going to be blessed by being at Auburn. We have the resources to bless them. Entitlement doesn’t come with that. They need to fit the culture and standard –regardless of how blessed you feel you are, you need to earn that every single day because people are investing in us. I’m totally convinced. My family loves living here. We love the encouragement we get from the common fan that loves this place — it’s been a blessing.”
There’s plenty of things we don’t see when it comes to building the program, specifically around culture, accountability, etc. I asked Freeze what type of progress he thinks he’s made in Year One at Auburn.
“I think we’ve made great strides in our culture. We have started learning about true accountability, what it’s like to meet the standard every single day. I do not think you can win big games if you don’t have a large percentage of your team that is buying into accountability into each other. I think the one thing I’m still searching for more wisdom on, and I’m getting better, is this element of when you and I played, there was this element in the locker room and outside the locker room of community and communication.
“This new world of we talk to each other through text and we date through Snapchat and all of that world, you miss this element of true community. When you have true community, it’s easy to hold each other accountable because you and I have that relationship. I can say to you, ‘come on, that’s not the way we do that.’ I’m still wanting that to grow. It’s gotten better. I do, I want us to be a community that has a relationship with one another that can, when you get through practice, why don’t we go hang out instead of putting our headsets on and playing video games with someone else online in the world? What about put our phones away and have a conversation.
“Maybe I’m living in a fairytale world, I don’t know. I want to develop that here. I’m still, the culture has gotten better, the standard has gotten better, the accountability has gotten better. I’m hopeful I can continue to build the community aspect of what a team really is.”
Freeze often times says he didn’t enter his first season with any specific goals in mind. His focus was on the process of building a program and results will come. After a 6-6 season to start things off, Freeze was asked what he’s most proud of in Year One? For the first time during the presser, he paused for a few seconds before answering.
“Probably I’m most proud of the Auburn family that supported us. I’m proud of our kids and the fight they showed. You lose four straight games and that thing could have gone a lot of different ways and I thought they stayed engaged. All of that is encouraging, but it’s hard for me to sit here and say that I am proud of delivering six wins when I feel like it could have been more. The Auburn family and fans were absolutely, they have blown me away, which makes me want to deliver them a product that they can be so happy with. I know we were limited, you could see there was different athleticism in some games, but our kids found a way to compete. I’m very proud of that. I sure wish we could have had a few more in the win column.”
