Hugh Freeze is 11-14 in two seasons running Auburn football. But he has the financial backing of the team's boosters and has brought in a second straight top-10 recruiting class in 2025. But he also can't afford another season on the Plains like his first two, and it's hard to trust him given the underwhelming results in big road games in 2023 and 2024.
There's been a lot of bad, and there's recently been a ton of good. Understandably, there are mixed feelings at play here.
That explains ESPN Senior Writer Adam Rittenberg's uneven assessment of Freeze, who fell into the "We want this to work" category in his Way-too-early 2025 college football coaching hot seat tiers.
"Freeze's return to the SEC in late 2022 sparked widespread reaction, but few could deny he fit Auburn's vision for improvement. Auburn's personnel had dropped off, and Freeze had the roots and results in the deep South to turn things around. But Tigers fans are still waiting, as Freeze sits at 11-14 overall and 5-11 in SEC play. His tenure includes home losses to New Mexico State, Cal, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Oklahoma," Rittenberg wrote.
"The roster is improving, though, as Auburn landed consecutive top-10 recruiting classes and has added key transfers such as quarterback Jackson Arnold (Oklahoma) and wide receiver Eric Singleton Jr. (Georgia Tech). A manageable 2025 schedule could lead to a breakthrough, which Freeze needs despite a contract that runs through the 2028 season."
Freeze's future is as unpredictable as the sport's itself. Auburn will wait for results, but it won't allow the program's reputation to continue declining. If the Tigers need to cut their losses from a second-straight bad hire, it will.
AU's boosters don't want that. Neither does a good portion of Tiger fans. But nothing is guaranteed, especially not Auburn being a contender in the College Football Playoff era. Only once (2017) were they anything close to being one.
Just look at this year's College Football Playoff field, though. Indiana and SMU came out of nowhere to become nationally relevant. AU would be easier to see coming than those two teams were if it figured things out in 2025.
If nothing else, On3 would've seen it coming.