Cadillac Williams shares what Iron Bowl performance says about Robby Ashford

Auburn was on the cusp of bowl eligibility at the end of the season, needing a win over Alabama in the Iron Bowl to reach the six-win mark. They fell short, losing to the Crimson Tide 49-27 despite the heroics of quarterback Robby Ashford, who accounted for 198 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns. Cadillac Williams was Tiger’s interim head coach for that ballgame, and spoke about the play of his quarterback.

“That guy’s a fighter, he’s going to compete, he’s going to give you everything he has,” Williams said. “Guy’s incredible, one of the better athletes I have ever been around ever. He was trying to will us to that win, but Robby knows, I talked with Robby multiple times and shared.”

Ashford ended the season as the SEC’s second-leading rusher at the quarterback position with 710 yards on the ground, trying his best to will his team to victory in a season where they seemed undermanned throughout.

The Tigers have now hired Hugh Freeze as their head coach, with Williams switching from his interim head coach to the associate head coach of the team. Williams’ time at the helm gave him a front-row seat to what the team needs to improve, which he believes starts with mental preparation.

“Not only him, myself, this team we got to prepare better and be mentally tough, not just show up on Saturday, and not saying these kids just show up on Saturday, but being a former player, a guy who’s kind of been in their shoes, been down that path, got to be intentional,” Williams explained.

Williams elaborated on the importance of practice combined with mental preparation, drawing from his personal experience as a player.

“Saturday is the moment that will get to big for you if you don’t take every rep with the mindset of a game like mentality. A lot of guys were more talented than me, but like I tell them guys, I wasn’t a good enough player to just go through the motion at practice,” Williams said. “So we just gotta continue to build on guy’s habits, life’s just about patterns man, once they can get that down, the mental part of it, a lot of those kids gonna be a-okay.”

Freeze and Williams have their work cut out for them, as they look to establish a new culture, recruit at a high level, and compete in one of the country’s toughest division in all of college football next season in year one of a new era at Auburn.