Hugh Freeze, you want to stop being a punching bag? Quiet the skeptics on a standalone stage
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If you’re not at least a little of skeptical of Hugh Freeze, you haven’t been paying attention. Either that or you’re convinced that Auburn is always on the brink of greatness, even as it’s on the heels of 4 consecutive losing seasons for the first time since the Harry Truman administration.
One could point out that half of those losing seasons weren’t under Freeze’s watch, and that Bryan Harsin was to blame for a rough situation in Year 1. Sooner or later, though, even Freeze’s non-skeptics reach their breaking point. Alternatively, Freeze’s skeptics could be converted into believers if Auburn looks the part on the right stage.
Friday night is the perfect opportunity for that.
Before everyone buckles in for a full Saturday of college football, Freeze will lead Auburn at Baylor in a game that’ll kick off on Friday night at 7 p.m. local time (CT). It’s the type of game that even a casual college football fan can catch at a local watering hole on a Friday night. No, it won’t necessarily be a game that defines Freeze’s tenure, but it can sure as heck set the tone in a pivotal Year 3.
Ask yourself this — would Freeze winning at Baylor be his best win to date? Some would put a 4-overtime victory against Texas A&M in there, but like everyone else that the Tigers beat in the last 3 seasons, they finished unranked. We’ve got a long way to go to know where Baylor will finish in an up-for-grabs Big 12. All we know is that Dave Aranda had an 8-win team last year, and there are expectations entering Friday night that the Bears have a decent shot to win the conference (4th at +650 on BetMGM).
Freeze’s 4-5 record in true road games isn’t a skeptic’s go-to stat — Josh Heupel is 8-10 in true road games and he just got his 3rd extension at Tennessee — but look at the teams that he beat. They went a combined 14-33. The only bowl team in that bunch was 2023 California, who went 6-7 and watched star running back Jaydn Ott go down with an injury in the second half of an ugly 14-10 game. It wasn’t exactly a “change the conversation” game both at the time and in hindsight.
Friday night isn’t about style points for Auburn
It is, however, going to temporarily quiet the skeptics if Freeze’s 3rd crack at fielding a competent offense shows promise.
The well-documented addition of Jackson Arnold could define Freeze’s tenure on The Plains. Reports out of camp have been, um, interesting? The only constant has been Freeze stating his desire to build his confidence back up after he was benched as Oklahoma‘s starter in 2024. No matter who is calling plays, let’s be clear. All the blame goes to Freeze if this doesn’t work out. We won’t have a definitive answer to that based on this game.
You know what would turn fall camp jabs into hearty pats on the back? If Arnold is throwing into big windows. If Arnold is making all the right decisions on run-pass options. If Arnold is getting rid of the ball quickly and stepping into downfield throws.
And by the way, I don’t just mean that Arnold does that with an opening script. If he’s doing that deep into the 3rd quarter on the road, that’s going to be the better measuring stick for how in sync Freeze and Arnold are in their first game working together.
We all know the worst-case scenario for this. Lord knows Auburn has given the masses plenty of “worst-case scenarios” during the 2020s. Worst-case scenario within the confines of this game would be Arnold looking overwhelmed against a Baylor defense that, while it’s led by Aranda, is still trying to finish in the top half in FBS in scoring defense for the first time since 2021. Disgruntled talented Auburn receivers would be awful Week 1 optics. Turning the football over in a very 2023-24 manner would be disastrous.
Think that’s laying it on too thick? Go back to Florida‘s opener against Miami (FL). It was also Year 3 for one Billy Napier, who did everything he could in the offseason to quiet the doubt surrounding his program, and all he did with 8 months to prepare was get dismantled by a clearly superior Miami team. Florida fans wanted Napier fired by halftime. Granted, those optics were in front of home fans.
It’s going to be a different vibe for Freeze and Co. on the road, no matter what the result is. But with all due respect to Baylor, we all know that more people will be talking about the Auburn side of things when that final clock hits zero. You can close your eyes and picture the segment on College GameDay, where they’ll break down whether Freeze showed vs. Baylor that he’s turning things around, or if this felt like the same song and a new verse. In what’s still a critical time in the recruiting calendar for a program that was falling behind so much that it needed its athletic director to address it publicly — Auburn has since climbed its way into the top 40 of the 247Sports rankings — those things matter.
It’s only Week 1, but Friday night in Waco has major ramifications. All parties involved should be able to sense that. Freeze has to not only sense urgency, but deliver a product that’s a distant memory of its former self. If that’s not evident by night’s end, yikes.
But if it is evident, finally, Freeze can show that his back is no longer against the ropes.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
