Last week, I looked at Brent Venables, an SEC head coach who might not be an SEC coach beyond this year if his team doesn’t rebound in a big way.
After Oklahoma fell to 6-7 last season, Venables finds himself squarely on the hot seat entering his fourth year with the program. The Sooners have big expectations in 2025. But Venables might not need to make the College Football Playoff to save himself. A winning record would be nice. Opening conference play with a win would go a long way toward that goal.
And, in that sense, Sept. 20 in Norman will be a big day.
Because Venables isn’t the only SEC coach in danger. The guy he will coach against that day also finds himself on the hot seat.
Auburn lost to Oklahoma at home last season, blowing a lead late in the fourth quarter. The Tigers lost their first 4 SEC games and 6 of 8 overall. The only wins were by 14 over Kentucky and by 2 over Texas A&M. After a 6-7 record in Year 1, Auburn finished Year 2 under Hugh Freeze at 5-7. For the second time in 3 years, the Tigers failed to qualify for a bowl game.
Freeze gets a Year 3 to hopefully course-correct. If he doesn’t, there likely won’t be a Year 4.
Hugh Freeze, Auburn and big expectations
“We’re tired of losing,” wrote one Auburn fan in response to an AL.com poll that asked respondents what Freeze had to get right in Year 3.
Just win, baby.
Auburn has had a losing record in each of the last 4 seasons. It has 28 losses in 4 years. By sheer volume of defeats, it is the worst 4-year stretch Auburn has had since suffering 29 losses from 1947-50. Ralph Jordan took over the following year.
Since Jordan’s arrival in 1951, Auburn has reached double-digit wins in a season 14 times.
That context is important.
Telling any coach to “just win” is setting a subjective bar. Winning to one program is different to another. Alabama has reached double-digit wins in a season 18 times in the last 25 years. Though fans would certainly welcome it, very few expect Auburn to morph into a College Football Playoff contender overnight.
When Auburn fired Bryan Harsin midway through the 2022 season and Alabama routed the Tigers in the Iron Bowl, a streak of 9 consecutive bowl games was snapped. Prior to 2022, Auburn had only missed a bowl game 4 times in the previous 27 years. Three of the 4 campaigns that ended without a postseason appearance resulted in the head coach being fired. The baseline expectation is a bowl game. That’s the bare minimum requirement facing Freeze at the moment.
“I’m not a fool,” Freeze said earlier this summer during a podcast appearance. “I think we’ve got to go to a bowl game.”
Would another 6-7 season really satisfy the masses on The Plains, though? If Freeze led the Tigers to a pre-Christmas bowl game, but got the doors blown off by teams like Georgia and Alabama, is he leading the program in 2026?
My guess is no.
A season-opening date with Baylor on the road will be a great barometer. Baylor is currently 35th in Bill Connelly’s preseason SP+ ratings. (Auburn is 25th.) With Sawyer Robertson, an underrated quarterback heading into the new year, the Bears have the juice to test an Auburn defense that was better against the run than the pass last year. Baylor was also plus-15 in the turnover department last season, with only 15 giveaways in 13 games.
If Auburn has corrected the flaws in the formula, we’ll know it against Baylor. If the issues that plagued last year’s team persist, we’ll know that too.
That being said, more than anything, Freeze and his boss have attributed the early-tenure struggles to the situation that Freeze inherited.
“Look, I inherited a program that didn’t have a Top 25 recruiting class for 4 years,” Freeze said during that Next Round podcast appearance. “We’ve had now 2 full recruiting classes, both of them ranked in the Top 10. I think 1 more, then your roster looks complete.
Athletic director John Cohen has the same view.
“There are two ways I evaluate our football program right now: Do we still have the kids in the locker room? And the answer to that was a resounding yes at the end of last year, especially with the way those kids helped in the recruiting process. And No. 2: Are we indeed evaluating and recruiting top-10 classes? And the answer to that is yes,” Cohen said in an interview with ESPN earlier this month.
“If those 2 things are happening in this league, you are going to have eventual success. I do think we started from behind the 8 ball. I’m not being critical of the kids who were here and stuck it out. I’m really proud of that. But we did not have Auburn-type talent here, and it was obvious that something was happening where kids were running in and out of this program. Our elite kids here at Auburn are not leaving the program anymore.”
In the days between Harsin’s firing and Freeze’s first game, 48 scholarship players left the Auburn roster. Auburn lost another 21 players to the portal after the 2023 season.
But, in the last 2 cycles, Freeze has signed the eighth-ranked and the sixth-ranked recruiting classes. Five-stars have headlined both groups. The 2025 class featured signatures from 4 of the state’s 6 highest-ranked recruits. The 2024 class had signatures from 3 of the state’s top 6 recruits, including sensational Central wideout Cam Coleman. The Tigers also brought in a top-10 transfer class this offseason.
Talent isn’t an issue anymore. And while Freeze has stated in multiple interviews throughout the summer that another elite class is needed, it can’t be used as a crutch in 2025.
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According to ESPN’s Football Power Index, Auburn has the fourth-easiest schedule in the SEC this upcoming season. Granted, that SOS ranks 14th nationally, but Auburn gets to play 4 of the other 5 SEC teams that lost 5 or more league games last season.
If the Tigers are closer to the Alabamas and Georgias of the conference, they should be winning games against the bottom.
Last year, the Tigers had one of the largest discrepancies between expected wins (7.8) and actual wins. Despite losing 7 of its 12 games, Auburn ended the season plus-77 on the scoreboard. Auburn also outgained opponents by 1.8 yards per play.
The Tigers were awful in the red zone (48.8% touchdown rate, 122nd nationally) and only 15 FBS teams (out of 134) had more giveaways.
In the loss to Oklahoma, Auburn missed a fourth-quarter field goal that would have put it up 14 with 10 to play, gave up a 4-play touchdown drive, then threw a pick-6 with 4 minutes remaining to go from up 5 to down 3.
“I’ve got to make sure that [quarterback Payton Thorne] understands the situation better, and we should’ve had runs there,” Freeze said after the game. “I have to be clearer with him on what we have to do there.”
Freeze caught plenty of flak last season for throwing his quarterback under the bus. And he opened himself up to an interesting conversation. According to PFF, Auburn quarterbacks have nearly as many turnover-worthy plays (28) as they do big-time throws (29) since Freeze took over the program. In 2016 at Ole Miss, Freeze’s quarterbacks have more TWPs (25) than BTTs (24). Chad Kelly had 21 TWPs on his own in 2015. Bo Wallace had 23 the year prior.
In 12 games last fall, Auburn’s passers had a 3.5% interception rate. That ranked 110th among FBS teams.
The national average for interception rate among FBS teams over the last 3 seasons has been around 2.7%. Freeze-coached teams have had an interception rate greater than 2.7% in 9 of his 12 seasons as a head coach. Freeze-coached teams have had an interception rate greater than 3.7% in each of his last 4 seasons.
Is this a system that requires very specific quarterbacks to be successful? If so, is Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold that kind of player?
Arnold had more TWPs (8) than BTTs (7) last season, though he only had 3 interceptions. He had a bad offensive line and a group of pass catchers that was devastated by injuries, but he was still one of only 2 quarterbacks in the FBS with more than 300 dropbacks and a per-pass average of less than 6 yards.
Thorne’s average depth of target was 10 yards. Arnold’s was 7.8.
If Arnold is asked to be more aggressive down the field, will the turnovers persist? Assuming health, Auburn has one of the best groups of receivers in the conference, headlined by Coleman and Georgia Tech transfer Eric Singleton Jr. Arnold won’t be wanting for targets.
Part of Arnold’s problem last season was a reluctance to open himself up to plays that could end badly. And in that reluctance, he just didn’t make enough plays at all. Now, he’s adjusting to a new play-caller on the fly in a spot with very little margin for error.
Auburn needs the offense to be more clinical when it comes to finishing. The Tigers were elite when it came to per-play efficiency (top 10 in the country) and yet they struggled to put points on the board (71st in scoring). The defense was stout (18th in yards per play, 27th in scoring) but that unit has to replace half of its regular contributors from last season.
In Norman, the Sooners replaced Arnold with one of the nation’s most explosive quarterbacks a season ago. And not only did John Mateer take up residence in the Sooner State, so did his offensive coordinator from his previous school. If Mateer and Oklahoma run the Tigers out of the building in September, what’s the vibe in Auburn upon the Tigers’ return?
If Arnold isn’t the guy Freeze needs him to be, how long of a leash does he have? Quarterback controversies are the last thing a coach on the hot seat needs.
How does Freeze save his job in 2025? It comes down to quarterback play. Auburn has to beat the teams it is supposed to beat. Last year, Oklahoma was one of those teams, and the Tigers self-destructed late in the game. Interceptions were tossed around like candy bars in a Scranton business school classroom. If Auburn is less volatile, it might be able to lean on its talent and push some teams — Georgia, Mizzou, Alabama — into uncomfortable fourth-quarter spots in one of the toughest environments to play in in all of college football.
Auburn fans are restless. Recruiting classes were enough to garner a third year. Success on the trail has to translate to on-field success to net a fourth year.
Hot Seat Index: How Hugh Freeze can save his job at Auburn in 2025 Saturday Down South.
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