Auburn head football coach Hugh Freeze sees the big picture when it comes to Bruce Pearl's Tigers making a second Final Four in their last five tries, not including the cancelled 2020 March Madness tournament due to COVID-19 and the postseason ban-stricken 2020-21 season/tournament.
Freeze sees the positive momentum the Auburn brand is receiving from this feel-good run to San Antonio.
“I told him [Bruce Pearl], ‘you are in the middle of the fight right now and the battles — you don’t recognize the notoriety and the brand [building] for Auburn that you and your team are doing to help all of us," Freeze told WKRG's Simone Eli in Atlanta this past weekend.
This Auburn basketball team is inspiring on a national scale. While some point to the starting lineup's collective age and mock them for "not finding jobs yet," guys like Chad Baker-Mazara, Denver Jones, and Dylan Cardwell are proof that hard work will put you in spotlights most thought were reserved for the high school 5-stars.
How is their journey anything but awe-inspiring? How about Johni Broome going from Morehead State to Wooden Award conversations.
Pearl's rise from the BBQ'd ashes of his Tennessee career to the No. 1 overall seed is also a lesson to coaches thinking they can't recover from rock bottom. And it's a relevant narrative considering AU athletics's other figurehead.
Freeze should appreciate his counterpart's journey, given where his career has gone in the past. His dismissal from his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, with Ole Miss was far more severe than Pearl's in Knoxville.
Freeze has a longer road to redemption, especially given how his first two years have gone.
But faith was placed in Pearl, and the results were spectacular. At this point, it's worth considering having it in Freeze -- if out of saving NIL money from avoiding yet another buyout is the only good reason.