Hugh Freeze’s wife had heard enough of her husband’s griping about the transfer portal.

“My wife has made me promise I’m through complaining,” Freeze said in early April. “But it’s just difficult. It’s difficult to manage.”

Freeze has long maintained his desire to build Auburn’s football roster through high school recruiting, even if that’s now considered a more dated method.

“Idealistically I’d love to just sign a bunch of high school and build great relationships with them and never lose them,” Freeze said in December. “I don’t know — that may be in dream land with the way the climate is of college football today.”

Back in December, Freeze and the Tigers’ coaching staff, for the most part, did just that as they landed a top 10 recruiting class, which featured a historic crop of wide receivers and the last-minute, signing-day flip of 4-star defensive lineman Amaris Williams.

However, none of that came easy.

During his national signing day press conference on Dec. 20, Freeze recalled having to “stay up all night and play video games” in an effort to fend off some of the “late-night pushes” that were coming from competing programs.

Keeping those high school players in the fold was Freeze’s priority and it showed — not only during the successful signing day, but also in the less-than-successful winter transfer portal window.

“I don’t think I have done very well, truthfully,” Freeze said of Auburn’s success in the transfer portal during his press conference on Dec. 16. “It’s difficult.”

At the time, Auburn had added just two transfers in Georgia State transfer wide receiver Robert Lewis and Kansas transfer defensive lineman Gage Keys, all while having seen a dozen Auburn players enter their names into the transfer portal.

And while the Tigers went on to add seven more transfers before the transfer portal window closed on Jan. 2, Freeze felt he and his staff left opportunities on the table after the Tigers entered the race for a handful of transfer targets, but never got them in the boat.

“We’ve had many visits set and they never even get to campus and they’ve already decided where they’re going before we ever get to ever get in front of them,” Freeze said. “Maybe I need to change our approach some to that, but before we get really serious with someone, I’d love to get in front of them and have some conversations.”

In short, Freeze and the Tigers hadn’t yet mastered the art of speed dating in the transfer portal — a shortcoming that needed to change come the spring transfer window.

Auburn approached the spring transfer window looking to address two specific areas of need: the defensive line and pass catchers.

And in learning from their struggles during the winter transfer window, Freeze and Auburn’s coaching staff moved quickly.

“The portal world, maybe we need to start trying to visit them as soon as you can instead of setting up for a weekend that never happens,” Freeze said.

So that was Auburn’s approach.

On the morning of April 16, the first day the portal opened, the Tigers reportedly expressed interest in Penn State transfer wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith, who told On3 Sports that Auburn was one of the teams he’d heard from since entering the portal.

Come the very next day, April 17, Indiana transfer defensive lineman Philip Blidi was wrapping up his official visit to The Plains. Meanwhile, it was reported that Lambert-Smith and Arkansas State transfer edge rusher Keyron Crawford had both scheduled visits of their own.

Hugh Freeze and Co. were moving quickly.

Come April 21, the Tigers began seeing the fruits of their labor as Blidi gave Auburn its first commitment of the spring transfer window.

The next afternoon, Auburn won the commitment of former Texas A&M and USC defensive lineman Isaiah Raikes, followed by the commitment of Crawford just hours later.

In less than a 24-hour span, the Tigers added a mixed bag of experience to their defensive line.

But the biggest splash would come just two days later with the commitment of Lambert-Smith, who chose Auburn over Texas A&M, giving the Tigers the top-ranked wide receiver in the portal.

With the quick additions of Blidi, Raikes, Crawford and Lambert-Smith, Auburn had effectively addressed the two needs laid out by Freeze following the A-Day spring game, which was a complete 180-degree flip from the winter transfer portal window.

It all goes to show that Freeze and Auburn’s staff were never downright bad or incapable of landing transfer targets.

Instead, it points to it being tough to stay up all night playing video games with high school recruits, while also having to worry about hastily scheduling visits for transfer targets.

And that’s Freeze’s gripe.

“I think our calendar is extremely messed up,” Freeze said in December. “It’s not good for high school recruiting, portal recruiting, managing your own team, getting ready for bowl prep. I think our calendar needs a serious, serious look at it for what’s best for our game. It’s hard for any of us to truly manage all of it.”

But Freeze’s wife doesn’t want to hear it, hence her making Freeze promise to stop whining about it.

Fortunately for her, Auburn’s recent portal success might temper some of Freeze’s complaints — for now at least.