Hugh Freeze speaks to Auburn’s culture, measuring stick against Alabama and Georgia
By Keith Farner
Published:
Hugh Freeze said Tuesday at SEC Media Days that his first order of business at Auburn was that the culture was defined. That is described as “faith, attitude, mental toughness, integrity and love.”
“Faith obviously that’s a word that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and certainly it means something for me,” Freeze said. “But the bottom line is we are going to re-establish Auburn being what Auburn should be. We must have faith in each other, that means faith in our administration, that means faith in our coaching staff, faith in the guy that lines up next to you, and that’s probably where it needed to begin, because I think that was lost for whatever reason.”
Freeze said he sensed coming in that the faith in the whole family of Auburn football was fractured somewhat.
Freeze was asked where Auburn stood in the league.
“I would see us in the upper echelon of this conference,” Freeze said. “There’s no reason, we have the facilities, we have the support, we have the administration and you’re in an area that football’s important, and you’re in an area that you can recruit to. I do think that the 24-25 recruiting cycle will tell a large portion of the story of my tenure there. Maybe 26, we might get 3 cycles, but we’ve gotta start closing the gap on the elite programs in this conference.”
That automatically includes chief rivals Alabama and Georgia.
“The Iron Bowl is what it is, and I don’t have to be educated on that,” he said. “I’ve been a part of some good rivalries and understand that in most polls, this would be No. 1 in the rivalry, so I know what it means to the people that support our university and our football program. I won’t need to be educated. … I relish the opportunities to play the Alabamas and the Georgias, and I know they’re tall tasks, and I know that they’re who you’re going to get measured against in my tenure there. So I’m excited about those games as our kids will be.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
