Auburn Leaning on Leaders Following Shocker vs. Cal: 'We have to Come Together'

The Auburn Tigers players remain galvanized after a shocking display in a loss to Cal 21-14 on Saturday night.

Though he's one of the younger players on the team, Auburn Tigers defensive lineman Keldric Faulk is an unquestioned leader. / Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK

Auburn spent the eight months of the offseason building momentum in the program and excitement for the future. That still remains, but the expectations for 2024 season took a reality check on Saturday with a poor showing by the offense in a 21-14 loss at home to the Cal Bears.

Hugh Freeze signed a much-celebrated freshman class, brought in a large number of transfers who are contributors on the 2024 team, and the recruiting classes for 2025 and 2026 are among the best in the country.

To further the hype, the Tigers started the season by putting up 73 points last week. But on Saturday Cal exploited Auburn’s holes in the roster where the talent isn’t yet to where it needs to be to compete for championships.

Freeze, the assistant coaches, and team leaders have spent endless time on changing the culture so when things go wrong, they won’t spiral.

“That’s what we built over the past off season,” sophomore leader Keldric Faulk said postgame. “When we started this new journey with Coach Freeze on his second year our thing was to get to know each other, get to come together more. Once we did that we fight hard for each other. Win lose or draw we’re going to continue to fight hard. We’re going to continue to play hard because that’s our brother beside us.”

Safety Jerrin Thompson is a first-year Tiger and transfer from Texas. He is one of four team captains along with quarterback Payton Thorne, tight end Luke Deal, and linebacker Eugene Asante.

“It’s a learning lesson for us as a team,” Thompson said. “When we face adversity we’ve got to come together more. We can’t fight on the sideline. That just pulls the team apart. Whenever we are facing adversity, shoot, whenever we have a bad play or bad drive we have to come together so we’re ready for the next one to come up.”

Auburn’s next game is at home versus New Mexico before getting into SEC play on Sept. 21 at home versus Arkansas.

“The biggest message is when you play D-I football you’re going to face adversity,” Thompson said. “We just have to respond the right way, and that’s to come together.”

It wasn’t a particularly great day for Thorne. He was credited with four interceptions, though not all his fault. However, he did have a number of miscues in Auburn’s loss.

“I talked to him a while ago after he got out of the shower,” Thompson said of Thorne. “I just told him to keep his head up. We’re going to need him. He said, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’ At the end of the day it wasn’t the game he wanted. The way he responds is going to say everything about Payton.”

Faulk is a second-year college player at defensive end for Auburn, and he led the charge for the defense on Saturday that struggled early but put the brakes on Cal’s offense for the final-35 minutes of the contest. Freeze spoke up about Faulk and his leadership to the media postgame.

“Keldric is one of the best leaders we have, and he plays his heart out,” Freeze said. “He’s one of the guys you can count on when things get tough to hang in there and look for the right way out of it. He’s a really good leader, and a really good kid, and obviously a very good player. All of those younger kids that we’re depending on for our future are watching him for sure. He’s a good one to watch.”

It was a consensus among Auburn’s leaders that it’s their responsibility to lead the bounce-back and turn this back into a positive direction.

Faulk stated, “If we actually learn from the loss, we learn from the mistakes, and we learn how to slant right. We learn where to put our hands. We learn how to rush on the edge when the quarterback drops and we think it’s a run play. We have to learn from it. Our young guys are tremendously talented. They’ve got so much talent to do what they do. They just need to rewatch the film and come back ready to work.”

“This is my sixth year,” Deal added. “And we’ve had a lot of mediocre seasons. That’s not what we’re trying to get accomplished this year.”