Hugh Freeze remains bullish on the direction of the program: 'The results are going to come'

AUBURN — Hugh Freeze wanted to make it abundantly clear on Monday that he believes his football team and program are close to breaking through.

After a 2-3 start to the season, and 8-10 start to his tenure at Auburn, the tension among supporters is rising. That’s the nature of college football, especially in the SEC. Only wins matter in the end.

After watching the Oklahoma film and having more time to reflect, Freeze remains bullish on the direction of his program.

“We’re judged by results and it’s my responsibility to bring results to this program that restore its glory,” Freeze said. “I firmly believe that part of my job is to build up Auburn men. That is one thing that I do believe and se occurring, even through the hardships that we’re going through. I feel like we’re accomplishing good things here.”

The good: Auburn ranks No. 35 in 10+ yard plays (58), No. 14 in 20+ yard plays (23), No. 9 in 30+ yard plays (12), and No. 6 in 40+ yard plays (7) against FBS opponents. Explosive plays have happened, but are often negated by other mistakes down the road.

The bad: Auburn ranks No. 132 in turnover margin (-2.20) and No. 133 in total turnovers (15) in five games. The Tigers are also No. 129 in time of possession, up from No. 134 entering last Saturday’s game. So, while explosive plays are possible, Auburn is holding onto the ball long enough on average to take advantage, largely because of turnovers.

Through it all, Freeze believes the light at the end of the tunnel is closer than it appears.

“My ask is to stick with us through the growing pains and support our guys, and efforts in our recruiting, because the results are going to come,” Freeze said.

“We’re not that far off and I hope the ’25 recruiting class sees that and knows they have a chance to come in and immediately impact this program, just like the ’24 class. Building takes time. I think you are all aware of what we inherited.”

From 2021-2023, Auburn’s recruiting classes ranked No. 19, 16 and 17. A large, large number of the players have since transferred out of the program, including nearly the entire 2021 class. Jarquez Hunter is the only high school signee left from the ’21 class, as most of that class never contributed at all.

Auburn’s 2024 class ranked No. 8, with the current 2025 class currently ranking No. 5 nationally.

On the field, Freeze says the results aren’t what anyone wants, acknowledging the union between understanding personnel and developing plans to best utilize that personnel is still a work in progress.

“We must continue to get better in every facet and that’s my job, including coaching situational football better, putting our players in the best possible situations for their abilities to provide them success. It doesn’t matter if I think something is a great call, great decision, if it doesn’t match up with the capabilities of our young men, I can’t put them in those situations,” he said.

Freeze is fully aware of both the program he inherited and the expectations of a starving fanbase. When he took the job, Freeze said based on the current landscape of college football, he felt like he could turn the program around “fairly fast.”

He believes he sees progress, even if the outside world doesn’t at times, but knows results between the lines have to come sooner rather than later.

“Should the fans expect more than a 2-3 start? Absolutely,” he said.

“We could easily be sitting here 5-0, but we didn’t get it done. We can point to coaching errors, we can point to 11 turnovers and all of those things. It’s a mixture and it’s our job to get it done. We can point to youth…we can sit here and talk about all those things, but we’re a result-oriented profession and those results didn’t go our way.

“There’s no way I can sit here and say that those three games weren’t winnable. That’s the toughest thing for me to say to them. I know what the sacrifices are that all our boosters and families, supporters, administration and everybody pours into supporting this program. 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.”

Next up, No. 5 Georgia.