This is an opinion column.

Auburn’s better than this.

At least it should be, and if you’re being honest, this isn’t the conversation we forecasted entering Year 3 of Hugh Freeze.

This guy’s been the master of the quick flip — the HGTV of distressed college football programs.

Yet after two seasons, Auburn’s modern farmhouse is still a blueprint, a pallet of shiplap. Looks promising on paper, but are they building for today’s world or an old one?

And is the urgency there?

For two years, Freeze has demanded patience and peddled excuses.

He just needs time to get his recruits. They came so close to winning a few of those seven losses last fall.

Much of the talk from last fall felt below the caliber of program Auburn should demand. It played for a national title just 12 years ago. Won one 15 seasons back.

But he got the pass because Bryan Harsin left him a junker. And while Harsin was arguably among the worst hires in recent SEC history, Freeze was a magician at past stops.

In Auburn, he hasn’t elevated a proven winner past the mid-tier.

And if the loser’s mentality was at least tolerated last fall, it should be flatly rejected in the run-up to Year 3.

Freeze’s interview with The Next Round on May 16 at the Regions Pro-Am was stunningly tone-deaf. Asked if he felt pressure to win a certain number of games, Freeze set the bar.

“I’m not a fool,” he said, seconds before proving otherwise. “I think we’ve got to go to a bowl game.”

Uh … yeah.

Anything short of the Birmingham Bowl would be concerning, I suppose.

Back to the excuses in his next breath as he explained, “the administration understands I inherited a program that didn’t have a top 25 recruiting class for four years.”

Uh … no.

Say what you will about the end of the Gus Malzahn era and the Harsin embarrassment. And we’ve said plenty.

But not once were the Tigers ranked outside of the top 21 in the 247Sports composite of national recruiting rankings in the four years before his arrival. They were as high as No. 7 in 2020.

One could argue that’s not indicative of what Freeze inherited with the turnover that comes with the transfer portal era.

Yet, in terms of roster quality, Auburn was No. 18 in each of Freeze’s two seasons in the 247Sports team talent composite rankings. And while that measure is imperfect, Auburn was just one spot behind College Football Playoff participant Tennessee and ahead of SMU (No. 25) and Arizona State (No. 30).

Auburn went 5-7. Oklahoma at No. 7 was the biggest underachiever in the 2024 talent index with a 6-7 record … but that includes a 27-21 win at Auburn.

What is true is Freeze’s high school recruiting credentials remain unquestioned. The Tigers has the No. 10 class in 2024 and No. 8 last cycle, according to 247Sports. They dominated the in-state elite last year.

But this is 2025, and the game’s not just scoring 12th graders. They flopped in the portal at QB in Year 1 and didn’t correct it Year 2. Rebuilds can move faster these days but it takes serious attention to the portal and savvy allocation of resources.

All of this will be forgotten if Freeze and flip the switch in Year 3 but it’s also fair to expect a different mindset (or at least talking points) at this point.

Just last week at SEC spring meetings in Sandestin, Freeze was asked again about his expectations.

“Win,” he said. “And I don’t know why it’s … uhh … I mean, it’s Auburn, you know, it’s one of the best jobs in the country and our roster looks better. And, you know, there’s a lot of games that you point to last year that could have gone the other way in our favor and, you know, that’s a reasonable expectation.

“That’s a reasonable expectation that none of us should run from them is for some of those start going our way, you know.”

Who wouldn’t run through a brick wall with that pep talk?

“And yeah, we had to, you know, redo a roster and all of that,” Freeze continued. “Here we are in Year 3. The roster is good enough to win football games, so you can’t run from that.”

Auburn’s better than that lukewarm talk.

Freeze is too.

He inherited a mess at Mississippi but took a team that was 2-10 the year before his arrival and went 7-6 in his first season of 2012. He was beating Nick Saban’s No. 1 Alabama team by Year 3.

Now, that’s where Freeze stands in his Auburn timeline.

He’s assembled talent with unrealized potential, so there are only so many excuses left on the vine. Last year’s crop of top-ranked freshmen receivers are all grown up.

Now they have a former 5-star QB recruit Jackson Arnold, a transfer from Oklahoma who had his peaks and valleys. He did, however, run for 131 yards and complete 9 of 11 passes in a 24-3 beating of Alabama.

Afterwards, he called the upset “a signature win in my playing career.”

Freeze’s wins over Saban’s Crimson Tide in 2014 and 2015 helped launch his career. Those two games helped build the reputational equity that led to his return to the SEC after an abrupt departure from his first job in the league.

The guy whose offense humbled legends and energized a program that won more parties than games over the decades.

Three years in, it’s time to see that Hugh Freeze in Auburn.

He’s better than this.

Auburn deserves better than these excuses and tepid assurances. Freeze last week said he loves the culture, the recruiting and staff chemistry.

“So,” he said, “there’s reason for optimism in our building.”

I suppose that beats the alternative, but it’s time for action. The talk is getting old.

And if the play remains stagnant, it could be time for something new.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.