Auburn football head coach Hugh Freeze doesn’t like to deal with non-football matters. He let that be known on February 2 at a post-National Signing Day press conference at the Woltosz Football Performance Center when discussing the different distractions he is faced with.
Freeze did most of his damage during Early National Signing Day when he flipped EDGE Keldric Faulk from Florida State and cornerback Kayin Lee from Ohio State but still officially saw Montgomery Catholic Jeremiah Cobb — a Bryan Harsin recruit who committed back in July 2022 — sign his letter of intent. With recruiting going through a dead period in February, Freeze can now focus on the day-to-day.
And in doing so, he called out the various things he doesn’t like to see and would prefer to have curtailed from the various AU athletics employees — mainly, a lack of discipline from his players causing lists to be made that he has to tend to:
"“If you’re showing up on a lot of lists, it’s not a good sign. That distracts me, and I don’t care for it very much at all.”“I don’t understand, man. I don’t understand how hard it is to park in the right spot, or to be on time. And I’m not saying that ours are dealing with that a lot right now, but I’d rather it be zero, truthfully.”"
Hugh Freeze getting to know his Auburn football players ahead of spring practice
Much of the recruiting legwork to put an improved Auburn football team on the field in 2023 has been done already, so now Freeze and co. must transition to getting his guys up to speed to present well during the spring.
Freeze commented about how the next step of the process of turning the team around is getting to know his recruits and inherited recruits on a personal level:
"“I’m just listening and watching but looking forward to getting to know our team, truthfully. It’s one of the most uncomfortable things about transition right now, and the way you have to recruit is you don’t get to know your guys, so I’m excited to get to know them. Next week will be a big week for that.”"
Let’s just hope he gets along with his players more than the last guy did.