Hugh Freeze describes change in his mindset entering year two

Hugh Freeze had an up and down debut over his first year as the head coach at Auburn. With that, he’s now truly trying to get the program on track with what he does in his second season leading the Tigers.

Freeze spoke about their approach down on The Plains during a press conference to open up their fall camp on Thursday. In doing so, he admitted that last season wasn’t what he fully wanted it to be considering the progress they didn’t undergo.

“You know, one of the disappointing things, I think, in me being honest with myself is I don’t know that I got as much done in year one that I would have liked to have done – culturally, chemistry, system,” Freeze shared.

However, 2024 is set to reroute that trajectory for Auburn.

Freeze is viewing it as a form of do-over for him with the Tigers. He’s feeling great about it too with where his coaching staff and roster, although a young one this fall, are at going into the season.

“It’s kind of like a restart but it’s one that I’m really excited about because of the chemistry that I sense in the building right now with the staff and the confidence that I see in the players right now when they walk around,” said Freeze. “Yeah, we are depending on a lot of young kids and that’s unknown exactly how well they’ll perform in a league like this. But very excited about their potential for sure. We’re going to do our best to get them ready.”

Expectations have taken another step for Freeze as he goes from year one to year two. He believes in what they’re doing, though, going into the upcoming fall.

Freeze picks gratitude as the theme for fall camp

Now that fall camp is underway, Freeze revealed the theme for the final stages of the offseason for Auburn.

In short, he wants his players to embody the word – gratitude.

“It’s a word I think we probably all could use a little more think when we operate with the not to be morbid or create any type of fear. But the brevity of life is accurate, it’s true,” Freeze said. “It’s real and my clocks ticking. I’ve probably lived over two-thirds of my life. I should be grateful for every single day that I have. And you combine that with all the many blessings that Auburn has blessed me, our staff, and our players with? It should be received with gratitude.”

Freeze said that he addressed three main points that conflict with gratitude during the speech to his team — gossip, presumption of pride, and security and comfort. Everyone has to work together, unselfishly, to attain consistent success.

“As a parent, you want your kids to grow, to be independent. You go from changing their diapers and feeding them bottles to hopefully they’ll be able to feed themselves. And, ultimately, become adults and live their lives accordingly. But, building a team? You kind of want the exact opposite.

“You want to be dependent upon each other to meet the standard that that we’ve all agreed upon and the great teams I think do that. And I think there’s kind of three, you know, maybe unconscious presumptions of pride that we all have.”