John Cohen didn’t seem concerned.

As he sat with his legs crossed, taking questions from reporters inside the Willow Point Golf & Country Club in Alexander City, he remained unwavering in his support of head football coach Hugh Freeze in the midst of Auburn’s disastrous month on the recruiting trail.

The Tigers had four players decommit in the past three weeks and saw their recruiting ranking for the 2026 class drop to 89th in the country, according to 247Sports. The No. 89 ranking places Auburn last in the Southeastern Conference and below Group of Five programs like Idaho, South Alabama, Texas State and others.

Both Cohen and Freeze pointed to the effects of the House settlement’s approval when explaining why Auburn’s recruiting has taken a hit. With a focus on maintaining the current roster, Freeze said it has become harder to put a recruiting class together.

“It does seem kind of strange that we’re some of the lowest range of numbers,” Freeze said. “We’re really, really low compared to some and I’m trying to figure that out.”

Part of Cohen’s confidence in things turning around on the recruiting trail is how things can start to change on Aug. 1. That’s when recruits can begin officially receiving written NIL offers.

“That’s a big day,” Cohen said. “It’s not rumor, it’s not innuendo, it’s not, ‘This person said this.’ It’s an offer on paper.”

Pointing out the Aug. 1 date was part of the overarching point from Cohen and Freeze that they believe Auburn is recruiting “the right way” and other schools could be in trouble once verbal offers become official.

He gave extra clarity to the approach, making the point that Auburn is taking the penalties associated with going over the revenue sharing cap seriously, penalties that Cohen said they’ve been told are “pretty harsh.”

Cohen also suggested that, “if there’s an offer in place that is a third party offer from NIL Go, it has to count against the cap.”

“Let me illustrate,” Cohen continued. “You have an $800,000 offer and the school says we’re gonna give you $400,000 in rev-share, we’re gonna give you $400,000 through a third party. I’m not 100% sure that everybody in the country is operating under that premise, which is reality.”

Third-party NIL payments that pass through the NIL Go clearinghouse don’t count against the cap, but the clearinghouse — in theory at least — will make it harder for schools to offer large payouts from booster collectives.

According to a report from Yahoo, Deloitte (operators of NIL Go) claimed that 70% of past deals from booster collectives would have been denied in their algorithm, while 90% of past deals from public companies would have been approved. Adding more context to that information, Deloitte said that 99% of those NIL deals through public companies were valued at less than $100,000, according to Yahoo.

Going back to Cohen’s point, that $400,000 third-party NIL offer that he brought up in his example wouldn’t count against the cap if approved by NIL Go, but there’s belief at Auburn that those big money offers won’t hold.

If schools go through with these big NIL offers when they officially go into writing and those offers don’t pass through the clearinghouse, schools could be on the hook to pay players what they were promised through the rev-share budget. That money is subject to the cap, putting schools at risk of the “harsh penalties” Cohen mentioned for going over the cap.

It could create a dilemma where schools have to either significantly change their offers when they go into writing, or risk them not making it through the clearinghouse. Based on what Cohen and Freeze said, Auburn wants to avoid that potential dilemma entirely.

“I’m here to tell you, we’re gonna do this the right way,” Cohen said. “We’re gonna be honest, we’re gonna be forthright, and we’re looking very much forward to August the first and dates beyond.”

Cohen was asked directly what happens if after Aug. 1 it becomes clear that other schools took the right approach and Auburn didn’t. Cohen responded by saying they would “cross that mountain when we get there.” While there seems to be confidence in that approach at Auburn, there’s always risk associated with taking a hard stance in what seems to still be a fluid situation.

“In my opinion we can’t put ourselves in jeopardy,” Freeze said. “We’ve got great interpretations from our administration and our legal team on what the settlement really means and how we should operate. That’s what we’re doing. If others are operating in a manner not with that, I’m hopeful they’ll be called out on that at some point.”

Regardless, there’s still confidence from Cohen and Freeze that Auburn’s 2026 recruiting class will finish strong. Freeze even predicted that Auburn will be back in the realm of a top 10 class by the December signing period.

“I do think it will all play out in the long game, and we’ll be in more battles than we are currently in people’s eyes,” Freeze said. “Once they shake out and everybody knows what’s what on the reality of revenue sharing and outside NIL deals and all of that. I think once we get to the facts of all of that, I think we’ll be in the game for many top players.”

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkusor email him at [email protected]m