Auburn football projected to have massive weekend at Cal and Notre Dame's expense

Hugh Freeze's Auburn football program can hand Cal a loss on the field and Notre Dame a loss off of it in Week 2. Knocking off the Golden Bears at Jordan-Hare Stadium and flipping 4-star Fighting Irish QB Deuce Knight could give Freeze more momentum than he's ever had on the Plains.

Especially if the Cal game sees flashes of the explosive offense the Alabama A&M features, but at a realistic scale to playing an ACC team instead of one from the SWAC.

Knight is visiting Auburn for a second straight week and it's hard not to feel his level of interest. Lucedale, Mississippi is a long way from South Bend, Indiana but merely a hop and a skip from the Alabama state line. He can make it easy for family to see him at Jordan-Hare Stadium, where he can probably become a starter by 2026.

247Sports' Tom Loy reports that he expects a flip this weekend. This follows weeks of Notre Dame writers believing Knight is as good as gone any moment now.

If the Tigers can win decisively -- AU is a two-score favorite, so a convincing double-digit win would be what the doctor ordered -- and flip Knight, Freeze will undoubtedly be on the hottest streak of any coach in the sport.

Auburn football emerging from the Bryan Harsin-induced dark ages

Even in 2023 with Freeze onboard, Cal was a tough matchup. To Freeze and Co.'s defense, they were on the road in Berkley, California, but the Tigers' lack of success gave Jaydn Ott credibility when saying Auburn didn't look like it once did on film.

That was on Freeze's predecessor, though, even if Freeze tried to undo the damage.

Now, AU is looking like the recruiting and on-field powerhouse it built its reputation on in previous decades before Bryan Harsin came to town and shunned any work outside of holding practices; e.g. recruiting, relationship-building, and anything else associated with establishing a winning culture.

Being so heavily favored against Cal and being projected to flip a blue-chip Notre Dame QB is exactly where Auburn is supposed to be in the college football world.