Walker White became the third Auburn football QB to hit the transfer portal, following in Hank Brown and Holden Geriner's footsteps. Jackson Arnold had just committed to the program hours earlier, likely explaining the move, but with White's departure, Hugh Freeze's Tigers coaching tenure now has a dubious distinction:
Freeze has not developed a single QB he's recruited out of high school at Auburn.
Granted, the sample size is small. Geriner wasn't even his recruit, so we're talking about White and Brown. Still, when the fanbase was clamoring for something other than Payton Thorne, Freeze stuck to his guns and rode his QB room to a 5-7 record in 2024 after getting middling results his first year.
Now, he has a transfer with one underwhelming season under his belt and an incoming 4-star freshman QB in Deuce Knight who is being criticized by one of the program's all-time legends for his choice of jersey number.
Freeze's third year could be filled with just as many doubts as the first two. This time, though, he cannot get it wrong. While he received grace for a 6-7 debut because of the post-Bryan Harsin firing roster turnover, and even still had some after going 5-7 this fall for the same reason, patience is running thin on the Plains.
If Freeze can't start at least developing who he brings into his top-10 recruiting classes, let alone start winning games than he loses, there will be no reason to keep him. In the modern era of college football, roster turnover happens quickly, but program cultures aren't built overnight. There's still a stench of losing at AU that Freeze needs to eradicate. If he can't, AD John Cohen is better off finding someone who can.
For all we know, Cohen may not get another hiring chance if he sticks with Freeze too long. There's definitive urgency on the Plains to turn things around, but a key component to success, continuity, is missing up and down the depth chart at the most important position on the field.