Auburn football will see its conference realign quicker than was previously announced when Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC in 2024, per an official press release from the Big 12. UT and OU will be paying nine figures combined to leave the Big 12 early.
This upcoming season will be a transitional one for college football with UCF, Cincinnati, Houston and BYU joining the Big 12 in 2023. USC and UCLA will be joining the Big Ten in 2024 — which just so happens to be the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff. Rumor has it that San Diego State and SMU could be Pac-12-bound to fill the vacancies LA’s teams are creating.
Things are changing rapidly, and Auburn football may just have their man to lead them into the future…
Hugh Freeze arrives just in time for Auburn football
The idea of Bryan Harsin leading Auburn football into a realigned SEC is something we all casually had in the back of our heads for a period of time — likely until February 2022 when he became a lame duck head coach with the infamous inquiry. That’s wild.
Harsin never tapped into the local high school talent market due to a failure to establish in-state relationships. As the sport moves closer to a full-on super-league, AU cannot stay stagnant, or worse, regress.
That’s why Hugh Freeze comes to the Plains at the perfect time. With one season left of the current two division structure in the SEC, this season could be an improvement, but still transitional in nature, with the offense possibly not having a glove fit in the QB room who was recruited by Freeze’s coaching staff.
But in 2024, the Tigers will be introducing what’s looking like a strong recruiting class and will have gotten a full recruiting cycle and season under its belt. By the time conference realignment comes to the SEC, Freeze should have Auburn better prepared than they would’ve been in the previous regime.