Stateline, NV -- With TV cameras and an overzealous TV reporter swarming, I got a quick interaction with Charles Barkley at the 2025 American Century Championship Celeb Am on Thursday.
I gave him a "War Eagle" and asked him his prediction for Auburn football's 2025 slate, to which he shrugged and said he didn't know before trying to escape me and the other media members in pursuit.
Sporting a backwards hat and smoking a cigar, Barkley likely wasn't thinking about his alma mater's upcoming campaign on the gridiron.
Not after a disastrous June sent the Tigers' 2026 recruiting class spiraling down into the bottom third of the entire FBS.
Besides, Barkley is a 7,500-to-1 underdog to win the tournament. His results are the most popular prop bet. He needs practice swings, not to give soundbites to everyone who wants one. Unfortunately for Barkley, he didn't get any real ones at the driving range before the 90+ celebrities in the tournament headed out in their Celeb Am pairings.
Every July, with the Sierra Mountains hugging the horizon, the spotlight will always be on Barkley's golf swing.
Auburn football is the least of his worries out on Lake Tahoe. Not to mention the scenery and casinos around the Edgewood Tahoe Resort, where the American Century Championship -- which is airing today through Sunday on NBC, Peacock, and the GOLF Channel -- is annually held.
And to be fair, Hugh Freeze doesn't sound overly confident about what the season will look like.
NIL making Auburn's future murky, like the rest of college football
Freeze admitted to David Pollack he doesn't know how things will go come August 1, when NIL will have a more definitive set of guidelines.
“There are just a lot of dynamics into it right now," Freeze prefaced before saying, "I’m confident that our staff–we have not changed a single approach with our recruiting, people love it when they come to Auburn. But, there are just a lot of dynamics that go into their decisions currently. Come August 1, everybody has to put this in writing now and we will see where everything shakes out after that. How in the world are you going to convince a third 5-star quarterback to come to you when you have Jackson Arnold and Deuce Knight? If we’re really operating under a true salary cap where we have no idea what an NIL value is until they decide that, which is our interpretation of the new rules, how do you do that?"
If Freeze sounds so unsure of the future, why would Sir Charles be any different?