Auburn veterans believing in Freeze and staff’s vision

On Tuesday, head coach Hugh Freeze and three players traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to represent Auburn at the 2023 SEC Media Days.

One common element echoed by Freeze and the players picked to represent the Tigers was that a new mindset and energy has taken over Auburn’s locker room, which was one of Freeze’s first goals he wanted to achieve when he arrived on the Plains as he wanted to “rewire the way we think.”

Offensive guard Kam Stutts, who is playing under his third head coach in five years at Auburn, backed up his new head coach and is seeing a new culture Freeze has installed since taking over for former head coach Bryan Harsin.

Stutts also tipped his hat to Freeze for even installing the culture into newcomers from the transfer portal and high school as 21 players from the portal transferred to Auburn, tied for the seventh-most in the country.

“I think he’s doing a really good job just focusing on the details and building that culture, getting everybody to buy in,” Stutts said. “Lots of new guys, so just building those relationships has been really important.”

As a part of a near complete coaching staff turnover, Freeze brought Jake Thornton to Auburn to coach the offensive line. Thornton spent the previous two seasons as the offensive line coach at Ole Miss, and Stutts is seeing a potential starting offensive line that could feature all upperclassmen buy in to the new coach.

“He (Thornton) is doing a really good job of communicating with us and giving us those tools to be successful on the O-line,” Stutts said. “Whenever you got some older guys, you have a little bit more freedom of things you can do and cause we can make on our own and just using those tools to help us be successful on the field. So, he’s done a good job.”

Tight end Luke Deal, who like Stutts is entering his fifth season at Auburn and was brought to SEC Media Days, voiced the same thing Stutts did, saying the team is “very focused in the moment.”

This mindset of not looking ahead or behind is a testament the veteran tight end gave Freeze credit for. 

“That's something that I think Coach Freeze has brought,” Deal said. “It's something that us as leaders have kind of established, and I'm really excited about that. I think we're really getting some quality work in this summer and spring and just leading up to the season. I'm really excited.”

Deal also spoke on running backs coach and associate head coach Carnell Williams, who coached the final four games for Auburn in 2022.

Deal detailed the importance of keeping a coach like Williams on the staff while Auburn aims to find its identity again.

“People were going to be pretty upset if you get rid of Cadillac Williams. I know I would be,” Deal said. “But coach Lac, he’s an incredible man, an incredible ambassador for this school, has been for a long time, and people with orange and blue in their blood, they want to see him around forever. So, that was definitely important for our success.”

Ahead of Freeze’s first season on the Plains, the head coach who has five years of SEC head coaching experience, is grateful to get a second chance in the SEC and eager to get started at Auburn with his new staff.

“I love our staff,” Freeze said. “I love the work they've put in in recruiting and in trying to improve our roster, and really, really excited about the opportunity to represent Auburn this fall and our great fan base.”