Auburn's Hugh Freeze Needs to Turn Recruiting Wins into Actual Wins

There's no question Hugh Freeze is improving the roster at Auburn, but his game-day decisions and man management have been lacking.

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze is stocking the roster with talent, but his game-day decisions have been lacking. / Brett Patzke-Imagn Images

There's a prevailing school of thought that Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze is a far better recruiter than he will ever be a game manager.

Unquestionably, Freeze should not be marked down for the tricks he's pulled in recruitment cycles ever since he arrived on the Auburn campus, but we all know even that can wear thin when losses keep on mounting.

Improvement in recruiting typically takes two or three years to bear fruit while today's attention span doesn't last a TikTok video. It's tough to ask fans to be patient.

Going on the 2024 sample size, you'd have to say that the triumphs he's orchestrated on the recruitment side have kept his head above water, but little else as Auburn has stumbled to a 2-4 record.

That's a real disappointment all told, especially because recently flipping quarterback Deuce Knight away from Notre Dame might just solve the conundrums under center for Freeze moving forward. But how long before Knight lives up to his status as a prospect?

Setbacks on the field have however come thick and fast, leaving many to question if the sales techniques Freeze deploys only ring hollow in high pressure confines of the locker room.

Now that the bye week is history, Freeze broke cover on Monday, stressing once again the importance the whole program puts on recruiting with the overall betterment of the Tigers roster always being their primary concern.

"We've got the resources," Freeze declared on Monday. "Now, let's get the roster."

Of course, there's little doubt that the Tigers program has the money, facilities, and tradition to compete, but whether they will continue to so wholeheartedly bankroll Freeze if he can't deliver wins has to be increasingly debatable at best.

It could even be argued that Freeze is perhaps over-fixating on trying to push into the top-5 recruiting lists, and it's possibly taking his focus away from the day-to-day basics of coaching his kids up on the fundamentals. 

Whatever way you choose to slice it, the Tigers and Freeze are finding some kind of solace in the fact that young, talented high school players are enthusiastically wanting to head to the Plains to further themselves.

Keeping the flow of high profile new recruits to the Auburn program requires a lot more than just stability existing at the head coach position: it needs a winning program to finally emerge under Freeze.