The Auburn Tigers chose the worst time in their history to fall off as a program. With the CFP potentially expanding to 24 teams, most still wouldn't project AU to make the field in the next year or two based on recent history.
Is it fair to Alex Golesh that his team's reputation isn't positive nationally before he even takes the field for the first time? Not totally. Truthfully, though, you can't blame anyone for the lack of faith in Auburn after five years of Bryan Harsin, Hugh Freeze, and the interim coaches who temporarily replaced them after being fired mid-season.
Unfortunately, the Tigers chose the worst coaches, and thus, the worst time to be bad amid an era of more teams making the field. Auburn's five-year streak of losing records from 2021 to 2025 is only matched by the program's last such streak from 1946 to 1950.
Had a 24-team CFP existed over the past several decades, 247Sports' Nathan King has a depressing stat: the Tigers would've made CFP 12 times total since 1998 under Tommy Tuberville, Gene Chizik, and Gus Malzahn.
"The most commonly proposed 24-team model includes only one auto bid for the highest-ranked Group of Six team, no conference champion implications, teams 1-8 receiving a bye and a home game in the second round, and teams 9-24 playing each other on campuses in the first round," King prefaced before saying, "Using that rough format, Auburn would have made the playoff 12 times since the start of the BCS era in 1998 — which would have yielded nine games at Jordan-Hare Stadium. That would have given Tommy Tuberville six playoff appearances as head coach, and Gus Malzahn five."
Hugh Freeze set the program back further than anyone, but Bryan Harsin made Auburn worse when they needed to improve the most
There was always a narrative surrounding Harsin of him setting the program back so much that his successor would never have had a fair chance. And while he failed the team when Malzahn handed him a great program and when the Tigers needed to reverse the losing to stay relevant, he didn't set the program further back than Freeze did.
Freeze's legacy is that he overpaid for players and then didn't hold them accountable. That was more costly than the horrific problems behind the scenes during the Harsin era that were largely confined to his run. Freeze hasn't had ugly allegations of treatment of players. Perhaps the opposite, actually. He was too nice, unless your name was Jarquez Hunter or Payton Thorne, because accountability wasn't Freeze's strong suit. But make no mistake about it. Freeze's misspending only set the Tigers' reputation back further.
Just imagine what people will say about Cam Coleman if/when he thrives with the Texas Longhorns this summer. Jackson Arnold even has the chance to prove that Auburn/Freeze was the problem when he takes the field for Dan Mullen's UNLV Rebels this fall.
It's hard not to be upset about what's become of the program after realizing that there are retroactive championships the Tigers may have well won had they gotten the chance that equivalent programs in today's day and age receive.
It's important to understand who made Auburn what it is today, when a 24-team CFP still may not be big enough for the Tigers to make it. Golesh has an uphill climb ahead of him, to say the least. Freeze and Harsin left the program worse off than when they found it, unfortunately.
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