Former Alabama Quarterback Calls Out Hugh Freeze, Auburn Recruiting

Things haven’t been going the way of Auburn and Hugh Freeze, especially as it pertains to recruiting. Despite a few notable pickups in the past few days, Auburn still only has the 78th-ranked 2026 class in the nation.

Freeze has been adamant that other teams are “not playing fair” with their recruiting practices, per the NCAA’s new guidelines for NIL and revenue sharing. Despite this, he’s confident that he’ll pick up the pace and resume the Auburn recruiting team the fans know and love on Aug 1.

AJ McCarron, a former National Champion with Nick Saban’s Alabama, disagrees– profusely.

"Hugh Freeze is full of s—,” McCarron said. “I think Hugh Freeze is trying to do whatever he can to save face. He’s starting to feel pressure at Auburn – going into his third year, not having the success that the alumni, the boosters, everybody donating a lot of money thought he would have by this point. I think he’s trying to figure out and scramble on why they are not successful. … The state of Alabama is ran by Alabama fans, Alabama alumni – whether you like it or not."

McCarron’s comments, though ever passionate, hold little water. Freeze is far from the only coach referencing these malpractices, but he seems to be one of the only coaches concerned with the morality of it all.

That said, there is technically nothing illegal about some of these practices, as we’ve previously discussed on Auburn Tigers on SI.

The issue becomes the same as young “verbal commits,” in that there is effectively no way to regulate unofficial deals that are made between team and player, leading to potential issues with the NCAA’s control of rosters, fights between teams and players, or worse.

I’ll grant McCarron this– morality may not be the optimal way to win football games in today’s era. In fact, even in McCarron’s era, the early 2010s, players were being unfairly paid. However, when schools were caught, they were often forced to serve suspension time, pay fines, and more. This holds true even today.

The fact of the matter is that the NCAA’s new rules are unclear– vague enough, in fact, that some teams may be (allegedly) taking advantage of them to secure better rosters.

Despite the backlash, Hugh Freeze has been adamant that the Auburn team will look significantly different come Aug 1, as that’s when schools are officially allowed to use third-party money, and not just revenue sharing.

In fact, he’s pretty sure Auburn will sneak its way into the top 10.

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