Hugh Freeze evaluates how much buzz has been created around Auburn's program

Auburn hasn’t had much to be excited about over the last two football seasons. Besides Cadillac Williams’ run as the interim, nothing about the Bryan Harsin era was particularly rousing down on The Plains. While it wouldn’t have taken much to energize the fanbase in the team’s next chapter, though, it appears Hugh Freeze has provided a defibrillating shock to the program.

Freeze addressed the excitement around the Tigers during his press conference this week. He said it doesn’t surprise him at all considering how he and his staff have been welcomed before on top of pairing it with the appeal of Auburn’s brand.

“I was visiting with (Heather Dinich) today that covers all of college football, the playoffs. And, truthfully, I think every place that our staff has gone has been able to create a buzz and an excitement fairly quick,” Freeze said. “I certainly didn’t expect Auburn to be any less than that.”

“I don’t know that I have a good pulse for really what you’re referring to,” admitted Freeze. “Because I really have learned through my years that I might just want to keep myself focused on the task and on the people that are in the building with me. I’m not sure of the level of excitement…(But) I’m excited people are excited.”

Again, Freeze wouldn’t have to do much to build preseason hype for next fall. Harsin’s tenure made sure of that as the Tigers were just 9-12 over the last two seasons with him at the helm. That included a 4-9 mark against SEC competition, a 2-8 record versus ranked competition, and a brutal loss where the Tigers blew it in his only opportunity against Alabama.

Still, it’s now on Freeze to deliver his promises and make Auburn competitive again. Excitement is high because they match the expectations upon him as the head coach. With that said, he has every intention of stepping up to the plate and overachieving as the Tigers continue on in the spring and prepare for next season.

Freeze previews Auburn’s spring scrimmage, what he’s looking for from players

Hugh Freeze now has a few spring practices under his belt at the helm for the Tigers. And with his team getting into the swing of things, many have their eyes set on the team’s first upcoming scrimmage. It will give Freeze and his new staff their first live look at their 2023 team, and he recently spoke on what that scrimmage will look like.

“I never know what exactly’s been put out, so it’s not going to be some all-out scrimmage. It’ll be situational. Whether it’s a second-in-seven period play third down live or a P-in-10 period. But we’re not quite ready yet just to all-out scrimmage,” Freeze explained. “And we’re certainly not ready to tackle our tailbacks yet or anybody. We’re going to protect them but there will be some fairly live situational stuff.”

“Alignment, assignment, and effort,” Freeze said. “Are we aligned correctly? We had a lot of those issues in practices one, two, and three on both sides. Are we doing the right assignment and are we doing it with the right effort? And if we’re doing our job as coaches then that should be improving from practice to practice to practice. Some of the stuff that you see that we saw in the first three hopefully diminishes some.”

“And so it’s really about those three things. Whether we’re in a scrimmage situation and we are playing this period of practice live, or it’s thud, or it’s tag – until I see us aligning correctly and playing with great technique and doing our assignment right and playing with great effort? It’s going to be hard for me to feel like we’re improving at the rate that I want us to. (Not) until I see those,” Freeze said.