Hugh Freeze not using previous regime at Auburn as excuse for slow start in 2024

Auburn is off to a 2-3 start to the season entering Saturday’s game at Georgia, and the fan base is clearly frustrated. Head coach Hugh Freeze was asked during his press conference this week if the 2-3 start is because of a lack of talent left by the old staff, or if the current coaching staff deserves the blame.

Freeze didn’t hide the fact that Auburn wasn’t exactly left with a loaded roster, but he also feels that the current staff is at fault for the slow start.

“I won’t comment on what happened before I was here. The roster was what it was,” Huge Freeze said. “Everybody can make their own determination on that on how many people left and the recruiting rankings and what was brought in. So you can look at that and make your own determination. Should the fans expect more than a 2-3 start? Absolutely. I mean we could easily be sitting here being 5-0. But we didn’t get it done.”

Auburn is 2-3 (0-2) after beating Alabama A&M and New Mexico and falling to Cal, Arkansas and Oklahoma to open the year. Two of the three losses were by one score, and all three games were competitive throughout.

Ultimately turnovers and poor play on offense cost the Tigers in their losses.

“We can point to the coaching errors and we can point to the 11 turnovers and all of those things. It’s a mixture,” Freeze said. “We could point to our youth. But yes, like I said earlier, we can sit here and talk about all of those things, but we’re a result-oriented profession, and those results didn’t go our way, so there’s no way that I could sit here and say those three games weren’t winnable.

“So that’s the toughest thing for me to say to them, because I know what the sacrifices are that all of our boosters and families and supporters and administration and everybody pours into supporting the program.”

Auburn went 6-7 in Year 1 under Hugh Freeze and is off to a slow start again in Year 2. Freeze understands that fans are frustrated and doesn’t blame them. His focus now is on helping the Tigers find a way to win games.

“When you don’t deliver, it’s one thing to sit here and say, ‘Man, we just got our tails whipped. They were just better than us and deeper than us.’ And I’m not taking anything away from those teams. They found a way to win the games. But we found a way to lose them, in my mind,” Freeze said. “And that’s what’s the hardest thing about sitting here with the 2-3 record.”