Hugh Freeze ranked in bottom half of SEC coaches by SDS, ability to recruit questioned
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Auburn football feels like it is back on the rise.
The Tigers have hammered the transfer portal since Hugh Freeze's arrival back in November, and after a positive spring Auburn heads into the offseason with hope and excitement.
Matt Hayes of Saturday Down South recently released his power rankings for every SEC head coach heading into 2023, with Auburn's Hugh Freeze coming in at No. 10. Freeze sits above Billy Napier (Florida), Eli Drinkwitz (Missouri), Clark Lea (Vanderbilt), and Zach Arnett (Mississippi State).
Hayes noted that while Freeze's past does bring some concern as to how stable a program he can build at Auburn, he's now able to operate within a more open-minded landscape due to NIL's impact on recruiting.
"What Freeze accomplished at Ole Miss from 2012-16 should put everyone in the SEC on notice," Hayes wrote. "Those 39 wins in 5 seasons — 2 over Alabama and Saban — came with NCAA issues, but now it’s all legal with NIL deals. And Auburn is loaded."
The Tigers have done what they can with On To Victory, their largest and university-partnered NIL collective, in the transfer portal - grabbing a total of 21 players in Freeze's first season on the Plains. Now with the talent on paper to compete in the SEC West, fans' minds are set on winning now, as is beginning to become custom in this age of college football.
But what about the long term future? Can Hugh Freeze and his staff do enough on the recruiting trail to lay a solid foundation for the program to stand on in a continuously changing conference - and landscape?
"Freeze has proven he can X and O with the best of the SEC," Hayes wrote, "But can he build at a program that doesn’t exactly have patience — and can he recruit at an elite level when everyone else can hand out NIL cash, too?"
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