How are Auburn’s players are embracing the changing culture under Hugh Freeze?
Mondays at Auburn’s Woltosz Football Performance Facility are for truth meetings and life talks.
As one could imagine – with Auburn looking to snap its four-game losing streak this week against Mississippi State – recent truth meetings have forced the Tigers to take long, hard looks in the mirror. But once that truth meeting is over, that game is in the trashcan.
What happens next is where the life talks come into play.
This week’s life talk was all about “closed doors and unmet expectations”, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze revealed during the SEC Coaches’ Teleconference Wednesday afternoon.
“All of us face — at some point or another — closed doors or unmet expectations. And that’s never going to go away in life,” Freeze said Wednesday, echoing his message to the team. “And how we handle them, I think, will really determine how we get through them.”
And it’s the “handling them” part that has changed at Auburn since Freeze’s arrival.
Linebacker Eugene Asante was on Auburn’s roster last year as the Tigers went on a seven-game skid, while also having to navigate their head coach being fired midway through the season.
It was a lot. And it was hard for those in the locker room to handle.
“I think a little bit last year was guys hanging their head and the blame game,” Asante said of last season. “When people start pointing fingers, the team starts to lose chemistry.”
When Freeze first arrived to The Plains last November, he sensed a lack of accountability inside the locker room.
And while many of examples he saw were little things like getting to class late or skipping out on meals, he knew allowing his players to get away with those would eventually bleed onto the football field on Saturdays.
“I really believe that long term for Auburn, to be where we want it to be, that the accountability of those little things — you can’t slide on those,” Freeze said Monday. “I think that’s kind of, maybe when I got here, is something that they felt like they could.”
But that has since improved, Freeze says.
And as a result, the finger-pointing and head-hanging as stopped, too, Asante says.
“We understand that we have to play our best football in order to win games,” Asante said. “I think everybody is really reflecting inward and on things they can do rather than this guy’s not doing their job or this guy’s not doing their job. That’s what you really do need in a team sport.”
However, getting players to take accountability is just half the battle.
Once they accept it, they then have to be willing to put in the work to improve what needs improving – and that can be hard when in the midst of adversity.
“The challenge and temptation that most people have when they have an unmet expectation or a closed door is they become disengaged and therefore, just flow and don’t get better,” Freeze said. “And so my challenge to our staff and to our players this week is men, let’s just get 1% better.”
Since losing to LSU in Baton Rouge on Oct. 14 in a game that featured an uncharacteristic lack of effort from both sides of the football, Freeze has been looking for more energy and intensity out of his team during practices.
Heading into last week’s game against Ole Miss, Freeze was looking for “passionate, hard-working” practices, and he got them on Tuesday and Wednesday, he said last Thursday during his time on Auburn’s Tiger Talk radio show.
When asked about this week’s practices during Wednesday’s teleconference, Freeze said he thought Auburn had one of its better-looking Tuesdays than it’s had all year.
While it hasn’t been easy, sophomore quarterback Robby Ashford, who was also a part of last year’s team, says the team is bought in.
“With the streak that we’ve been on, it’s hard,” Ashford said Tuesday. “But at the end of the day, we know who’s got to come to work. It’s really who wants to work when times get hard. We’ve gotta come out and work. I mean, if you’re not on board with us, then you don’t need to be with us.
“The guys who are onboard — and that’s pretty much this whole team — are ready to work and ready to give it their all.”
What happened in Auburn’s first seven games is in the rearview mirror now. And that’s been the case since the Monday morning truth meeting that followed each one.
And just like veteran defensive back Jaylin Simpson said he and the defense in did after the LSU game, the last four losses have been thrown in the trash.
After all, there’s plenty to look ahead at – including the prospect of reaching bowl eligibility.
“We just want to get a bowl game so we can feel some kind of success for the season because right now I feel like a lot of people ain’t feeling that right now,” Simpson said Tuesday. “So we get this first win and keep it rolling, get a bowl game.”
And it all starts on Saturday with a game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs, which is slated for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff.
“I think everybody’s just — things aren’t going our way, but we’re just, we’re going to keep going,” Simpson said.
“A lot of it came from Coach Freeze yesterday, I think, the talk he had with us.”