The Auburn football program got a reality check this past weekend. Ahead of the Texas A&M matchup, the first conference game of the season, head coach Hugh Freeze said multiple times that some of the players were going to “get baptized into the SEC” in the game, and it turns out he was right.
The Tigers looked disappointing in their first SEC game, which is a tough pill to swallow with Georgia and LSU on deck. But Freeze told everyone this would happen. Everyone knows about the Auburn football recruiting droughts, the offensive line with Gus Malzahn and basically every position with Bryan Harsin, and fans saw the effects of that on Saturday.
Texas A&M had the top recruiting class in the nation in 2022, and the eighth best class in 2021. In comparison, Auburn has only one recruit still on the roster from its class of 2021, and the Tigers had the #21 class in 2022.
Freeze knows that he will not find instant success on the Plains, and ever since he was hired he has been asking fans for patience. He needs time to recruit, to develop, and to make Auburn football into his program, and once he does that he believes the Tigers will be successful, per The Montgomery Advertiser:
"“I don’t get to decide that,” Freeze said when asked about a reasonable amount of patience fans should have. “The good thing is I don’t worry about that anymore. I used to, but I’m older now. I’m totally comfortable in the way we’re building this program and mentoring young people and teaching them the lessons football teaches for life.“The wins will come, I believe that firmly, but whatever people’s patience level is — I can’t control that. I can’t worry about it, and I don’t worry about it. I worry about the people in this building and this organization."
Will more wins come for the Tigers this season? There are tough opponents ahead, but if the team keeps playing hard and fighting it’s completely possible for Auburn football to pull off a winning season.