Hugh Freeze Blocks Out the Noise Surrounding Auburn

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze has had enough to worry about within his team to pay too much attention what is being said outside the locker room.

Media and fans have been critical of Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze in 2024, but Freeze is focused internally. / John Reed-Imagn Images

Tuning out the outside noise is standard practice for any head coach, regardless if wins or losses are stacking up.

It's proving to be one of the only things Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze has excelled at so far this year on the coaching side of things.

"I didn't hear any. I don't hear that," Freeze said about the fans discontent during media availability this week. "We're just not consistent enough, obviously in critical downs offensively. I think our defense is playing really at a high level. Offensively, when we're not able to create explosive runs, it seems that we really struggle to protect the passer and to throw and catch some. But you know, we're not playing very well in special teams, so that's a bad combination."

Nothing short of winning out the rest of the way would put the Tigers back in contention for a very unlikely and fortuitous bowl appearance. Finishing 3-0 with wins over Texas A&M and Alabama would rescue his troubled second year in command, although that seems unlikely.

If we can take a deep breath of sobering reality for a moment, just about nobody within the program or in the stands at Jordan-Hare Stadium are happy with the way things are currently going.

Consequently, only a big win in the Iron Bowl over Alabama would give Freeze and the fanbase a timely shot in the arm that everyone is desperately searching for.

Just maybe it's worth snapping out of such wildly optimistic dream sequences. After all, this young Tigers team appears in no position to pull a major win out of the hat, but a change under center might provide a bit more hope for the future.

"Payton's played pretty solid, but at the same time you start thinking big picture and well, that's a tough - that's a tough quandary for you as a coach," Freeze confessed on the prospect of benching quarterback Payton Thorne (again). "When you start thinking big picture, as opposed to one of your players that really hasn't done anything wrong, but we certainly aren't winning."

Last time that happened, of course the Tigers incumbent starter Payton Thorne rode the pine for only one half of football, before returning to the fold to relieve the struggling youngster Hank Brown.

In the light of perhaps more impending changes, should Auburn lose heavily to Bama and Texas A&M to close out a calamitous campaign, it surely puts Freeze in an incredibly perilous position.

Talk of $20 million buyout clauses have filtered into the bar room and internet chats just recently, so Freeze would do well to completely block out that corrosive talk..

ESPN's notoriously outspoken analyst Paul Finebaum has even sounded a lot more disinterested about the ever growing trials and tribulations of Freeze and Co. this past week.

That in itself paints a pretty depressing picture of where the program is languishing presently - becoming such a competitive irrelevance is even more embarrassing for ardent Tigers fans.

Auburn's dog days as a sleeping giant certainly aren't over yet, and that burns pretty darn deep inside.