Column: Why the Hugh Freeze Era Must End on the Plains at Auburn

The Tigers can’t afford another season of stalled momentum and missed chances.

Auburn hired Hugh Freeze on Nov. 28, 2022, to recharge one of college football’s flagship programs. Three seasons in, the evidence shows a program stuck in neutral while rivals surge ahead. Freeze was brought in to win games that matter, restore an offensive identity and push Auburn back into the SEC’s upper tier. That hasn’t happened.

Start with results. Freeze’s first Auburn team went 6–7 (3–5 SEC) in 2023. The Tigers followed with 5–7 (2–6) in 2024. This fall, Auburn sits 3–4 overall and 0–4 in conference play, riding a four-game skid. That’s two straight losing seasons and a third tracking the same way, with an 0-for in the league to this point. Those are not isolated stumbles; that’s a pattern.

The big-game moments that define Auburn football have flipped against the Tigers. Everyone on the Plains remembers “fourth-and-31,” when Alabama ripped away the 2023 Iron Bowl in the final minute. Program-defining games can buoy a rebuild or bury it; that one buried it.

This season has offered more proof the trajectory isn’t improving. On Oct. 11, Georgia turned a goal-line fumble into a momentum swing and beat Auburn 20–10 at Jordan-Hare. Auburn led 10–0; Georgia scored the final 20. At home. In Year 3. That loss pushed the Tigers deeper into their SEC hole.

One week later, Auburn fell 23–17 in double overtime to No. 16 Missouri, again at home. The Tigers had chances, but special-teams misses and a final series that ended on fourth down sealed another defeat. Auburn is now 3–4, 0–4 in the SEC, exactly the scenario the Freeze hire was supposed to avoid by Year 3.

Yes, there have been flashes — the 43–41, four-overtime win over No. 15 Texas A&M in 2024 was a welcome jolt — but isolated highs don’t outweigh season-long lows. Two losing seasons are on the ledger already, and Auburn’s current record points to a third. A single thriller doesn’t change the bottom line.