By the time Hugh Freeze got to his Monday press conference, he hadn’t yet gotten to talk to the team all together. That’s typical. He usually holds his Monday meetings soon after, but he already had a sense of the mood in the Woltosz Football Performance Center following Saturday’s embarrassing loss to New Mexico State.

Freeze said it seemed like his team was all in a “fog.”

The shock from Saturday’s historic lost isn’t behind Freeze yet. He began his press conference discussing how disappointed he still was from the 31-10 defeat.

Though while a stunning and expensive loss from any angle, Freeze had some hints his team wasn’t ready to play before they took the field to begin with.

“I was nervous, anxious about how we would handle the success of three straight and becoming bowl eligible and check that box, and now you got Alabama next,” Freeze said. “And sometimes I can talk myself into believing things, and so you have to kinda balance that. But I told my wife Saturday morning I’m really concerned about are we really ready to understand you have to earn the right to win a game.”

He said last week’s practices weren’t as good as weeks prior. He said he and his staff didn’t do a good enough job preparing the team.

But if the mood of the team is still in a daze of shock and confusion, Freeze knows that has that flip. Immediately. In a week’s time, Auburn has to close the book on the upset loss and turn the page to its biggest game of the season: facing Alabama in the 2023 edition of the Iron Bowl. And that with Thanksgiving and trip home for many of Auburn’s players tucked in the middle.

“When stuff like that happens, there’s definitely just a fog going around,” offensive lineman and team captain Kam Stutts said. “They’re just trying to figure out what happened. It’s just being honest with ourselves and owning the film and continuing to strive to get better.”

So while Freeze hasn’t met with the whole Auburn team just yet, he did meet with the Culture Council — a group of Auburn players regarded as the best leaders in the locker room — on Monday morning. He was pleased with the response.

Jack linebacker Elijah McAllister is a member of that committee. He said the meeting’s focus was on not letting the loss to New Mexico State dictate this week’s result. McAllister said finding a focus away from the upset and toward the Iron Bowl won’t be hard. It will come by having an appreciation for what this rivalry means to the institutions and the fans.

Defensive lineman Marcus Harris said while the team hadn’t seen each other yet by the time he spoke to reporters Monday, the defense has a group chat and the message has already been getting this fixed as soon as possible.

“A lot of surprised people, a lot of confusion, a lot of questions people have,” cornerback Keionte Scott said. “It’s going to be exciting to see what will happen. When you’re in a situation like that you never really know. Just being able to see how the little things hurt us and how we were exposed, it will be exciting to see. Definitely a fog — just the surprise of wondering what, when, where and how. Just as far as clearing that up, it’s just understanding and realizing and comprehending what happened, accepting it, leaders accepting it, coaches accepting it. Then moving on and understanding we can’t do anything with the past, and just standing on what’s happening in the future.”

Auburn’s attempt to turn the page comes on a complicated week. McAllister said players will go home on Thursday morning for Thanksgiving. He said there is some time off on Wednesday to get ready for traveling. It’s a short week of practice to break that fog, McAllister said, but he compared it to like a week of fall camp because Auburn does not have classes this week for Thanksgiving break.

He said he likes that better anyway.

Before Auburn gets on any practice field this week, Freeze will finally have that first meeting with the team. His topic for that meeting is focus.

The focus wasn’t there last week. It’s what led to the bad practices. It’s why Freeze was nervous going into the game. So now he wants to see how his team responds. To see if they can find focus again. Focus on pushing aside what happened last week and moving on toward the Iron Bowl.

“Everybody has a choice of how you respond to whatever you’re dealing with, and we’ll all have that choice this week,” Freeze said. “But you sure would hope that if they got any type of competitive spirit in them as an individual, they’re going to shake off the cobwebs and get ready for this war that they’re getting ready to go into, and it will be that.”

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]