Hugh Freeze updates his health, how it impacted this week's preparation for Kentucky

The Auburn Tigers got a big win on Saturday, beating the Kentucky Wildcats to snap a four-game losing streak. It was a game where the Tigers were nearly without their head coach, Hugh Freeze, due to an illness he was battling.

After the game, Freeze addressed his health and how it impacted this week’s preparation while noting that the win has helped some.

“I feel good, now that we won,” Hugh Freeze said. “I’m sure I’ll get some rest tomorrow, hopefully when we get back.”

Prior to the game, it was reported that Hugh Freeze was battling an illness, though he would coach the Kentucky game despite it. That illness was noted by insider Pete Thamel to potentially be food poisoning, which kept him from the team.

In the end, not much changed due to Freeze’s illness. Instead, the only major thing that he missed in the lead-up to the Kentucky game was that he didn’t travel with the team and therefore missed the Friday night meetings.

“The only thing that really was different was Friday. I wasn’t in the team meetings at the hotel Friday night. I told our football administrator that we might need to just do that every Saturday — just whatever works,” Freeze said. “That’s the only thing that was different. I got here today for all our meetings. So, the Friday meeting would have been miserable for everybody if I had tried to travel yesterday with them. But nothing was really different other than I missed the Friday night meetings.”

While being sick probably isn’t the preference moving forward, the result in Lexington was a good one for the Tigers. With that win, Auburn moved to 3-5 on the season and 1-4 in SEC play. While it hasn’t been the season that the Tigers wanted overall, it did help keep making a bowl game this season more manageable. Still, to get to six wins, it’s a tough road ahead for Auburn. The Tigers will need to win three of their final four games, with games against Texas A&M and Alabama on the schedule.

Before any of that Hugh Freeze and the Tigers are going to host a challenging Vanderbilt Commodores team that has acquitted itself well this season. On top of that, the Commodores are led by Diego Pavia, who last season was the quarterback of a New Mexico State team that upset Auburn. So, nothing is going to be easy in SEC play from here.