While Hugh Freeze has energized an Auburn football fanbase that has been hurting over the past several seasons and recruiting cycles by bringing the program’s recruiting ranks up from the 50s to the 16-20 range from most composites, Bama Hammer’s Ronald Evans isn’t sold on Freeze’s results thus far.
In fact, he doesn’t even believe Freeze will be the best recruiter the program has had since 2020.
Evans, in a piece titled ‘Alabama Football: At the opposite end of the recruiting world, there’s Auburn,’ made the claim that Freeze won’t even be as good of a recruiter as current UCF head coach Gus Malzahn, who was fired from the Auburn football head coaching role in 2020 despite never having a losing season:
"“Some Auburn fans see what is happening and are beginning to think Freeze, while an improvement over Bryan Harsin as a recruiter, may not be as good as Gus Malzahn.”"
Critical context is missing in BH’s assessment of Auburn football HC Hugh Freeze
While comparing what Hugh Freeze has done to Nick Saban this offseason certainly makes Auburn football look like a longshot to compete for the SEC West crown in 2023, Bama Hammer’s Ronald Evans is missing a very crucial detail regarding Freeze’s recruiting results in his first month on the trail.
Freeze was recruiting for Liberty as recently as November, and he has had to pick up the pieces from the underwhelming Bryan Harsin era.
While the hype surrounding Freeze’s class so far may seem overblown to other fanbases, it’s critical to remember that he has not had much time to recruit and he has still been able to shore up some of the weaknesses, namely the offensive line, that neither Harsin nor Gus Malzahn and their respective support staffs were not able to.
Freeze’s results, at least to those who have seen suboptimal blocking for years, resonate more on the Plains than elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done one hell of a job on the recruiting trail.