Hugh Freeze's first season at Auburn football is over. What's a fair grade for him?
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — College coaches have two main responsibilities: Recruiting and game planning.
The best in the business can do both, but coaches have to at least be good at one to survive. Being proficient in recruiting provides reason for optimism and hope for the future — think Florida's Billy Napier — and being able to cook up a scheme that provides early-tenure success will earn a coach some good will. Fans will eventual grow impatient if the talent isn't upgraded and the win total doesn't balloon, though.
Auburn football coach Hugh Freeze clearly leaned into recruiting in Year 1. He hasn't been shy in admitting that was his strategy. Maybe it'll work for him in the long run, but the 54-year-old Freeze has to make it to Year 3, Year 4 and beyond to fully enjoy the fruits of his recruiting labor.
Getting there means improving on the field, where results were mediocre at best in 2023. Here's how we grade Freeze's first year on the Plains.
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Recruiting: A
The haul is not yet finalized — it won't be until after the February signing window — but Auburn currently boasts the No. 7 collection of talent in the Class of 2024 with 18 scholarship recruits inked and one verbally committed.
It's a class that's earned a team score from 247Sports of 282.19. That's the second-highest mark the Tigers have earned in the modern recruiting era, with No. 1 coming in 2011 (283.06) immediately after Auburn won the national championship with Cam Newton.
There's no way to slice it other than to give Freeze immense credit for his work on the recruiting trail. Stacking classes like this is how to close in on the conference's top teams such as Alabama and Georgia.
Five-star receiver and current Alabama commit Ryan Williams is still out there, too. If the Tigers can make that flip happen, there isn't a fair grade to give Freeze here expect an A+.
On the field: C-
Freeze spoke time and time again throughout the season about a talent gap. He's probably right, given that Auburn recruiting finished No. 9 (2022) and No. 7 (2021) in the SEC in the two cycles before his arrival. Maybe it's a crutch or an excuse, but the notion is based in some truth.
But for what felt like the first time, Freeze admitted Saturday that he could've squeezed more juice out of his team in Year 1: "I don't think I did a very good job in a lot of areas this year with our staff and with our team," Freeze said after getting shellacked by Maryland to fall to 6-7. "We felt like we competed really, really well in some games and we had some letdowns in others, and we didn't complete some games we could have won.
"We weren't consistent in the level of competitiveness that you have to have to win at this level, particularly in our conference or against Big Ten teams. We can all say we need to improve our roster, and we've said that and we're working on that and we're going to do that, but even with the roster we had, I felt like we could have gotten more out of it if I had done a better job."
The Tigers let what would've been a historic upset over Georgia fall through late, came up a touchdown short against Ole Miss, were inexplicably blown out at home by New Mexico State and figured out a way to lose an Iron Bowl that felt like they had already won. Talent gap or not — New Mexico State surely wasn't as talented as Auburn — Freeze needed another win or two to improve this grade.
Overall: B
Auburn fans shouldn't take Freeze's recruiting wins for granted. It matters, and his production on the trail is made even more impressive knowing that he flipped his top five recruits in 2024 from other SEC teams — WR Cam Coleman (Texas A&M), WR Perry Thompson (Alabama), edge Amaris Williams (Florida), LB Demarcus Riddick (Georgia) and edge Jamonta Waller (Florida).
The room for improvement is between the white lines. It seems like Freeze knows the product he put on the field in 2023 was unacceptable. Only he can make it up to fans in 2024.
Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on Twitter @rich_silva18.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Grading Hugh Freeze for first year with Auburn football
