Following a 27-10 loss at Texas A&M, Auburn sits at 0-1 in SEC play and has a tall task in front of it in its continuance of conference games.
Auburn hasn’t started the season with an 0-3 conference record since 2012 in which it lost every conference game and fired head coach Gene Chizik, but the way Auburn’s schedule is laid out, the Tigers could see it take a while before they grab their first conference win under head coach Hugh Freeze.
Expectations always seem to run high among Auburn fans regarding football, and even though Freeze is in his first season at the helm on the Plains, this season is no exception.
Freeze is aware of the expectations Auburn fans have at all times, but Freeze, in his 13th season as a head coach, doesn’t seem to think those expectations are completely realistic.
“Whatever people's patience level is, I can't control that, so I can't worry about it,” Freeze said. “And I really don't worry about it. I worry about the people in this building, our administration and I worry about our fans too. But I can't control their patience level, and I think… it’s just kind of ridiculous that those are already discussions in and around our kids, I do. But it's not something that we worry about, but they should expect us to improve and that’s a reasonable expectation.”
If the expectations are unrealistic, like Freeze pointed to, Auburn does not have an easy task of hitting those expectations with a brutal six-game stretch of conference games, three of which are on the road, upcoming.
The first game among that six-game stretch is this Saturday as Auburn hosts the defending national champions and No. 1 Georgia in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. A program that Freeze called “one of the gold standards of college football right now,” is riding a 21-game winning streak coming into Jordan-Hare Stadium and serves as likely the toughest matchup Auburn will face over its next six games. If Auburn were to win, it would be one of the biggest upsets of the 2023 season thus far, but if it loses, Georgia prolongs its winning streak over Auburn to seven straight games, the longest since the Bulldogs won nine straight from 1923-31.
Following the Georgia matchup, Auburn has a bye week to prepare for a test against the reigning SEC West champions LSU in Death Valley, a place the Tigers have won at only once over the last 11 matchups. Auburn is the underdog against Georgia and likely won’t be favored against LSU either, and faces the reality of that potential 0-3 start to conference play. However, if Auburn defeats the Bayou Bengals, it avoids that start and wins back-to-back matchups in Death Valley for the first time since 1997 and 1999.
Freeze is aware the odds are stacked against his team and tells his team whether it is favored or not. But pointing to upsets he’s pulled off as a head coach like Liberty over Arkansas and Virginia Tech or Ole Miss over Alabama, he also knows that just because his team is the underdog, that doesn’t mean it can’t win.
“I'm always truthful with our team, and I tell them every Monday in our truth meeting… ‘hey, this game you're the favorite, you should win it. This game is a toss up. This game you'll be the underdog. That doesn’t mean you can't win it, and here's how we're going to win it,’” Freeze said. “So, I've done that everywhere I've ever been, and I think it creates a transparency and authenticity. At the same time I tell them, to be very clear on the fact, that I've never walked into a game thinking we can't win it, and they shouldn't either.”
The following week, Auburn welcomes Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss to the Plains in a game where Freeze will play the program he formerly coached. The Rebels might not be ranked for this matchup as they must face LSU and Arkansas before they face Auburn, or they could rise back into the top 15. Either way, this game could be the difference in whether Auburn gets its first conference win of the season, starts 0-4 or gets a second, or even third, big conference win and announces itself as a potential threat in the west.
Once the series of games against Georgia, LSU and Ole Miss is finished, Auburn faces Mississippi State, travels to Vanderbilt and goes on the road to play Arkansas. All three games are winnable as ESPN’s analytics give Auburn a 50% or more chance to win two of those (the lone game being the Arkansas matchup), but all three are arguably losable too and could be the difference in whether the Tigers finish their season strong or are fighting for a bowl game come the middle of November.
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Jacob Waters is a senior majoring in journalism. From Leeds, Alabama, he started with The Plainsman in August, 2021.
Twitter: @JacobWaters_
