In the past few years, the world of college football has changed a lot, and it has impacted every team including Auburn football. This is the era of the transfer portal, and now it is easier than ever for college athletes to pack up and transfer to play for another program with few, if any, penalties.
This changes the game in more ways in one, including adding another duty to the job of head coach. Now, in addition to recruiting athletes and getting them to commit to a program, coaches also have to work to keep the roster happy so they don’t jump ship and go play somewhere else.
It makes it extremely difficult to develop talent when it’s so easy to go somewhere else if you don’t like your circumstances in one place, and for Auburn football head coach Hugh Freeze, the transfer portal is a bad lesson in life, per AL.com:
"“There’s too many voices in the heads of these young men,” Freeze said during the SEC Teleconference Wednesday afternoon. “And I think they get bad advice and we’ve made it really, really easy to quit something because it’s hard. And I think that’s a bad lesson for now and a bad lesson for life.”"
Although he has these beliefs, Freeze has still fully embraced the portal, which is obvious from the Tigers’ top transfer haul he brought in over the offseason. Refusing to utilize and embrace the transfer portal just isn’t an option these days.
To combat having his players enter the transfer portal, Freeze and his coaching staff have implemented a plan they call The SOAR Program, details of which the Tigers’ head coach was hesitant to share because he believes it’s working well.
"“We’ve got a group of men in this building, that’s one of their sole charges is developing the relationships with these young kids to try to convince them of truth and not believing some lies or hopes,” Freeze explained."
It’s smart thinking on Freeze’s end, because it’s a challenge that all programs are facing, but when trying to build a strong future for Auburn football, keeping quality talent on the Plains is vital.