Hugh Freeze Confident He's Building Something Special at Auburn

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze had a top-10 recruiting class last year, and he's seeing the dividends from his young players already.

Auburn Tigers freshman wide receiver Malcolm Simmons had four catches for 61 yards and a touchdown in a loss to the Oklahoma Sooners / Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers

When Hugh Freeze took over the Auburn Tigers prior to last season, it was understood an infusion of talent would be needed. With the introduction of young players from Freeze's top-10 recruiting class would be growing pains.

We've seen that as the Auburn Tigers dropped their third winnable game on Saturday to the Oklahoma Sooners 27-21. However, there are some positive things to take away from the game for the Tigers.

One of those positives is the level of play they got from young players, many of them just freshman.

Freeze believes these young players contributing at a high level early will expedite the process of rebuilding the program.

“It's making ground, the process is,” Freeze said. “I see it. The record doesn't reflect it, even when playing 12 freshmen and a combination of the 49 guys that played Saturday, there were 24, if you count our kicker, 24 freshmen and sophomores that played the majority of the snaps. And I use that for my recruiting pitch. We'll play you early. So let's finish this ‘25 class up and give us some more depth that we need to compete in this great conference.”

Freeze shouted out the freshmen who impressed him the most in Auburn’s game against Oklahoma. 

“Demarcus Riddick led us in tackles,” Freeze said. “True freshmen, (Malcolm) Simmons and (Cam) Coleman combined for almost 150 yards receiving. Offense had 26 first downs, I believe, almost 500 yards of offense. Defense held them to 290 yards, 2-for-11 on third downs, which is a huge improvement from the previous weeks on our third down work. It's just frustrating to sit here and tell you all that and to know what the results are.”

It can frustrating for the young players as well. Freeze is aware of this but wants to fill the Tigers with athletes capable of figuring out how to contribute at a high level immediately.

“Well, they had no experience,” Freeze said. “There’s nothing like playing in a game. You start to see, and again without being negative toward any other players, you start to see that we’re recruiting kids that can make a difference. That can run and they can tackle. We hadn’t run a quarterback down in a scramble in a while and here goes (Demarcus) Riddick in the game. He doesn’t know half of what to do really with every call right now. 

“But when you’re an athlete, you’re an athlete. That guy runs a very fast quarterback down on several occasions. That’s the type of recruiting we have to have, and that we are doing and going to add to us very soon.”

Wide receiver Malcolm Simmons has been one of Auburn’s most impactful freshmen so far this season. He has 14 catches for 214 yards, both second on the team to senior KeAndre Lambert-Smith. Simmons has some things to clean up but Freeze sees the value he beings to the offense.

“I think that, again, they’re just young, and it takes time,” Freeze said. “There’s a process to developing, and very few, but there are some that come in and are totally ready, and most of them probably got there early. But you’re starting to see him understand a few more things. He still has things to learn, like we threw him two more bubble screens, and for 18 years now he's taking that and just outrunning everybody to the sidelines and been able to do it, but here it’s not quite that way. 

But here is where he is going to learn, and if he puts his foot in the ground on a couple of those, those are like 10-yard gains, so there’s still things he’s learning.”

Freeze mentioned how he does not feel like Auburn is that far away from being a contender in the SEC again. These young players are a strong part of the reason why.