Auburn Tigers fans are deep within the throes of despair after five, count 'em, five straight losing seasons since 2021, and as the program tries to move past the darkness under new head coach Alex Golesh, the numbers paint a brutal picture.
In the last three years under Hugh Freeze, which some in the fanbase see as an "improvement" over the Bryan Harsin seasons in 2021 and 2022, the Tigers are comparable to a handful of programs that don't resemble the picture of dominant, or even respectable, College Football: the UCLA Bruins, Kansas Jayhawks, Oregon State Beavers, Pitt Panthers, Arkansas Razorbacks, UCF Knights, and Purdue Boilermakers.
Each of these teams has one brutal thing in common. They rank near the bottom of the barrel in losses during games they are the betting favorite. Perhaps no stat is a greater measure of raw, unadulterated disappointment.
"In the three seasons under Hugh Freeze, Auburn went 12-7 outright as a favorite. That’s a winning percentage of just 63.2%, and it ranks in the bottom 25 of all FBS teams over the last three seasons. The only power-conference teams behind Auburn in winning percentage as a favorite are UCLA, Kansas, Oregon State, Pittsburgh, Arkansas, UCF and Purdue. That’s not the company you want to keep," the Auburn Observer's Justin Ferguson wrote.
"That winning percentage falls to 60% in games as a home favorite. That’s in the bottom 20 of all FBS teams. What’s even worse is that Auburn lost five straight games to power-conference opponents as a home favorite under Freeze: Cal 2024, Arkansas 2024, Oklahoma 2024, Vanderbilt 2024 and Kentucky 2025. And right before that skid was New Mexico State 2023."
Alex Golesh could transform Auburn simply by winning games Tigers shouldn't lose
The great part about being at rock bottom is that it can't get much lower. Golesh has to go out of his way to produce a product as disheveled as Freeze's autonomous, highly paid locker room or fracture the team's camaraderie by playing favorites as Harsin did.
Golesh's Tigers just need to not lose games like Freeze did against the New Mexico State Aggies. Jordan-Hare Stadium needs to be a stadium that doesn't allow 21-point home losses to Conference USA teams.
Is that too much to ask at the end of the day? It definitely doesn't feel like it. Everyone just wants to at least wake up from this prolonged nightmare and remember a time when eight wins was the norm on the Plains, or when back-to-back New Year's Six Bowl trips were taken for granted because they weren't CFP games.
Being on the island of misfit toys, fillwed with low-tier programs from across the FBS landscape, is a ride everyone wants off of in Lee County, Alabama.
Win the games they should and Golesh's team will be off of it soon enough.
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