Auburn football HC Hugh Freeze on ‘closing the gap’

If you have been paying attention, you know that new Auburn football head coach Hugh Freeze inherited the program at its lowest point in a long time. For the past several years, recruiting has been on a backslide, resulting in the weakening of the football program as a whole.

At SEC Media Days, Freeze stressed that the Auburn football program is historically a strong one and that while it isn’t back yet, he intends to get the Tigers back to the competitive program they once were.

But there is still much work to be done, as a complete program turnaround cannot happen in just one offseason. When asked about the team he inherited from Bryan Harsin and the talent gap between the Tigers and their rivals, Freeze spoke carefully, per Auburn Rivals:

"“I don’t want to be negative. Just, it was off from what I believe an Auburn roster should look like,” said Freeze. “Recruiting has been a little more challenging than I thought for Auburn, because of what I believe Auburn should be and what it’s proven it can be. It’s, what, one of six teams that has played in two national championship games in the last 13 years or so? I mean, that’s pretty recent."

Fixing Auburn football’s problems starts with recruiting, and Freeze and his staff have done a hell of a job on the recruiting trail in the months since they’ve arrived on the Plains. By this fall, there will be over 40 new faces suiting up in orange and blue between transfers and incoming freshmen.

Freeze insists that the team has gotten better since his arrival, but fans should still temper their expectations in year one. While it’s clear that the roster has improved, it’s still unclear how the Tigers will match up against the powerhouses that are and have been operating at a high level.

Things are looking up, with Auburn football selling the most season tickets in program history and fans buying into the Freeze era, but fans would do well to remember to be patient and to trust the rebuilding process on the Plains.