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Auburn taking 'business mindset' into Music City Bowl, program ramifications and momentum at stake

Justin Hokansonby:Justin Hokanson•12/27/23•

_JHokanson

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Elijah McAllister (Photo by Auburn Athletics)

NASHVILLE, Tenn.. — As Hugh Freeze continues to talk about “flipping the script” with the Auburn football program, the Music City Bowl against Maryland presents another opportunity to continue down that path.

The Tigers finished 6-6 during an up-and-down season, but after close losses to Georgia and Alabama, plus landing No. 7-ranked recruiting class, there’s optimism present that Freeze and co. would like to keep going into the offseason.

“It’s important to me. I think they sense that,” Freeze said on Wednesday as Auburn begins on-site bowl practice three days before the bowl game.

Freeze has been successful in bowl games with a 6-1 record at Ole Miss and Liberty. One of those wins while at Ole Miss was later vacated by the NCAA.

“This is a new experience for me, I’ve never had the opt outs and I’ve never dealt with that before. That was something new. You’re not quite the same team that finished the year personnel wise, but in some ways that’s exciting for kicking off the new year. We aren’t in the playoffs this year, so you can look at it like an extra game for these young kids that we are going to depend upon,” Freeze said.

“Anytime we put Auburn on our jersey, it’s important to compete in a way. We haven’t been as consistent in that as I wanted to be. At times, we were really good. I hope we can finish this ’23 campaign here in Nashville with that type of effort and execution and get a win for Auburn, for our team, our fans, for the SEC, everything that goes into bowl games.”

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The bowl game carries historic importance, too, in addition to importance in building momentum into 2024.

The last bowl game Auburn won was the Music City Bowl following the 2018 season, a blowout win over Purdue. In fact, the Tigers have only beaten Purdue and Memphis (2015 Birmingham Bowl) in the last decade. Since beating Oregon (2011 National Championship) and Virginia (2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl), Auburn is 2-7 in bowl games.

Meanwhile, Auburn is also trying to avoid three straight losing records at season’s end for the first time since 1975-77. In Bryan Harsin’s first season, Auburn finished 6-7, then 5-7 last season, and now sits at 6-6 with only the bowl game remaining.

And to top it off, Auburn hasn’t lost four straight bowl games in the history of the program. But after losing to Minnesota, Northwestern and Houston in the last three bowl appearances, that’s what’s at stake on Saturday.

“We’re enjoying building that true community, but at the end of the day, the main thing is the main thing and that’s getting a win,” senior linebacker Elijah McAllister said. “We’re coming here with a business mindset and getting ready to win. We talked about flipping the script to star the year and there’s no better way to cap it off with a bowl game victory and a winning record, and setting a precedent for the next few years.”

Auburn takes on Maryland at 1 pm CT in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl inside Nissan Stadium on December 30.

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