Hugh Freeze, John Cohen discuss Auburn’s experience with new NIL GO clearinghouse

Auburn’s roster building and NIL strategies since the House Settlement was passed have been under a microscope this summer.

The Tigers’ 2026 recruiting class has plummeted in the national rankings since June, a drop highlighted by four players decommitting. Head coach Hugh Freeze and athletic director John Cohen both attributed the recent struggles to Auburn’s adjustment to the new revenue sharing era and the program’s strategy for preserving the current roster and staying under the cap.

Both Freeze and Cohen have emphasized that they don’t believe other schools are operating by the same rules as Auburn, something they think could change on Aug. 1, when offers can start going into writing.

Each athletic department operates under the rev-share cap of $20.5 million, but third-party NIL deals don’t count against the cap. The Deloitte NIL GO clearinghouse was introduced to vet NIL deals, in theory eliminating the large pay-for-play deals often handed out by booster collectives.

Those deals aren’t necessarily illegal now, but money that comes from the University or an affiliate — deals that aren’t third-party — would count against the cap. The clearinghouse is still in the early stages, but Freeze and Cohen gave some insight on how it has affected Auburn so far.

“Truthfully, we haven’t had that many in the football building yet that we’ve gotten the word back on,” Freeze said at an AMBUSH event in Atlanta on Monday.

With things still being in the early stages, Freeze avoided giving an extensive comment on Auburn’s deals through NIL GO, deferring to Cohen. However, he did use it as an example of why he thinks Auburn’s rev-share and NIL strategies are the right ones.

Freeze made the point that if players who have already been in college and proven themselves have had trouble getting deals approved or agreeing on a value through the clearinghouse, he doesn’t want to promise large numbers to high school recruits.

Cohen elaborated more on Auburn’s experience with NIL GO so far, saying that it’s “a little hit or miss right now.”

“You’re convinced that something that a businessperson in the business community put through is gonna go through and sail through, and it doesn’t,” Cohen said. “And then you’re convinced that something that something everybody else puts in probably isn’t going to go through, and it does. But I think we’re all going to go through this learning experience.”

Cohen said that if information from the SEC and Deloitte suggests that Auburn is taking the wrong approach, the program will adjust, emphasizing the time still left between now and the early signing period in December.

He was asked specifically if Auburn had the funding and support from its boosters to adjust and strike quickly if the landscape changes, to which Cohen said Auburn will “do what it takes.”

Despite Auburn’s low position in the recruiting rankings, Cohen is still confident in how the 2026 class will finish, praising Freeze’s ability as a recruiter.

“You can’t confuse patience with inactivity. This man, who was just sitting right here, is as active a recruiter as any coach I’ve ever seen in any sport,” Cohen said. “I just spent two hours in a car with him, and he was called by seven different recruits. They called him. That’s the kind of relationship he has with recruits…

“There are staffs out there in which the head coach really isn’t part of that process, that there’s a separate group. Not Hugh Freeze, he’s personally in the middle of it, and it takes a lot of time, but no matter what he’s doing at that moment, he stops everything in his life to talk to those recruits and to talk to their families.”

Time will ultimately tell whether or not Auburn’s approach will work, but for now, neither Cohen or Freeze is backing away from their strategy yet.

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

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