The pads are poppin’, the whistles are blowin’, and it’s go-time on the Plains.
Auburn football officially begins preseason camp on Wednesday, just a month away from its season opener against Baylor in a primetime Friday night showdown.
As Year 3 of the Hugh Freeze era nears, there’s a high level of confidence surrounding the Tigers’ program. Auburn has stacked back-to-back top-10 recruiting classes and some high-level portal hauls on the trail, giving it its best roster, at least on paper, in nearly a decade.
There’s certainly no denying that Freeze must turn the culture around surrounding Auburn football, which has undergone four straight losing seasons and just one top 25 win under his tutelage. But Freeze is “pumped” and is the most excited he’s been for fall camp in quite some time.
“Pumped. I told our team last night in our first team meeting that I’m probably more excited about this fall camp than I can remember in a long time. I think they sense that from our staff, and I sense it from them,” Freeze said on Wednesday ahead of the Tigers’ first practice. “I think it’s evident all throughout the building as they walk around with the body language I see, which is a billboard for your attitude. Excited to get really started today.”
Freeze has emphasized, since the time he arrived in Auburn, that it would take three full recruiting classes to get the ball rolling in the right direction on the field. Obviously, the Tigers dropped some games over the last two seasons that could have gone in their favor had they just executed on some little things here and there, namely turnovers and red zone issues offensively.
But now that he and his staff have built the roster to their liking, the Tigers are reaping the benefits. With bigger and faster guys at nearly every position, this team is built to contend, and Freeze exclaimed that at SEC Media Days last week, saying, “I truly believe that in the playoff run we’re going to be in the discussion, because I love this team.”
“There’s no doubt you need length and girth in this league up front, and at linebacker, too. And it helps if you have it in the secondary. I tell guys all the time when they’re recruiting these guys from an offensive perspective when we’re talking about open receivers, length matters on both sides,” said Freeze.
“You can’t have that in every single one of them, but our length at linebacker has gotten longer and faster. Yes that is by design, you want more length and girth at particularly a lot of the positions,” he later added.
In Freeze's eyes, confidence is key to success in 2025 – and his team has it. The Tigers will have a chance to build on that with a win in Waco, which would surely set the tone for a triumphant turnaround campaign on the Plains.
“This team really has a chance to be a really exciting team to watch, particularly, they can get a win or two under their belt that even grow the confidence that they have right now. Right now they have a pretty good swagger about them,” said Freeze. “Hopefully, we can grow that throughout camp by the success we have, but really we need to go get a ‘W’ and then they will really be confident.”
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