Auburn's Hugh Freeze Needs Breakout Season to Keep Job, Legacy

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze fixed his team in the offseason. After two seasons of less-than-stellar play and disappointing seasons, the coach hit the transfer portal hard to augment several stellar recruiting classes. 

However, no Auburn coach in 50 years has had two-losing seasons and survived the third. Freeze has, in large part because of the expectations to rebuild a program that had been left threadbare. On paper, he’s done that. 

Now, Freeze must win many more games to keep his job. Forget the concept of a raise or incentives; winning in 2025 becomes the mandate. In order to keep Freeze from typing an end date of his tenure, the time is now. However, how many games will save his job? 

AL.com’s Joe Goodman believes that double-digit victories are the metric by which the head coach gets judged at the end of the year. 

"The best coaches in the SEC have a history of competing for national championships by their third seasons, wrote Goodman on AL.com. “Is that too much to expect from Freeze? Auburn should win 10 games in 2025, but the must-or-bust games are road trips to Oklahoma, Vanderbilt and Arkansas. Freeze will be called a failure if he doesn’t win at least eight, and he won’t have anyone to blame but himself."

In a nutshell, Goodman tells the absolute truth. Freeze has had virtually every resource at his disposal when it comes to building his version of the Auburn Tigers.  Now, stripping away the veneer of positivity, the team needs to start winning this season. Patience may be a virtue, but like snowfall in East Alabama, it's few and far between. 

In a conference where teams wear 10-win seasons like gaudy jewelry at the family barbecue, the program must change.

On September 20th, the team heads out to Norman to play the Sooners. The first conference game of the year carries a weight that Auburn can either stand on to propel the team forward with a win or deal with a loss that crushes the aspirations of a coach that will ultimately lose his job. 

The biggest advantage Freeze boasts at the game is Jackson Arnold. Arnold bled crimson and cream until he didn't. Left abandoned by the coaches and fans alike, he eagerly seeks to make that stadium eat the largest piece of humble pie as the Tigers leave Oklahoma with a victory.

Really, at this point, the 2026 Auburn season for Freeze does not exist. The team will rightly focus on right now. You don't bring in 19 transfers looking for the future. 720 minutes separate Auburn from regaining its place among the relevant. 

For Hugh Freeze, this season defines his entire career. Too young for retirement, Auburn could represent the last Power Four job that he can claim.