Auburn Tigers football coach Hugh Freeze has the program projected as a top 25 team ahead of the 2025 season despite two straight losing seasons and an increasingly difficult SEC schedule. After three years of having to undo the damage by Bryan Harsin's two years on the Plains, the War Rapport's Mike Gittens proclaimed the current team to be the most talented since Gus Malzahn's second-to-last roster in 2019.
"Easily Tyler…easily," Gittens said to a Twitter user asking if the 2025 roster was the best since 2019. "The job Freeze has done in recruiting is nothing short of remarkable. It’s what’s fueling some of these pre-season polls we’re seeing. That talent is undeniable."
That 2019 team had multiple future NFL first-round draft picks, including Bo Nix, Derrick Brown, and Noah Igbinoghene. The 2025 team, as On3's Andy Staples notes, has a good number of weapons for first-year starting quarterback Jackson Arnold.
“If you’re Jackson Arnold, you’re looking at a pretty good offensive line, Cam Coleman on the outside, Eric Singleton Jr. comes over from Georgia Tech and you’re gonna play Where’s Waldo with him," Staples said on The Next Round Live.
"I get pretty excited about what [Auburn] could be.”
Arnold is the singular force that will best determine if this team has nine wins in them like that 2019 team. Between his ability to reach potential he didn't flash much of at Oklahoma, and DJ Durkin continuing to uphold a standard of excellence defensively, potentially through using star freshmen, the Tigers have a higher ceiling than they have had since before the NIL era.
That means expectations are higher too, and the potential disappointment can sting even more.
Tiger fans aren't foreign to these concepts, though. In many ways, expecting a top 25 team based on potential alone is on brand.