Hugh Freeze is the walking embodiment of “Always Be Crootin” as the Auburn coach. He’s constantly attached to his phone to check in with recruits, high school coaches, and parents to find players.

Freeze is known for his aggressiveness in finding prospects. As much as Freeze enjoys the hard work, he values getting some downtime. In the world before the transfer portal and NIL, the month of May presented a time for college coaches to take a breather. Now there are two transfer portal windows, one opening before spring football and one after.

The Auburn head coach discussed how the new calendar impacts him Wednesday with reporters before eating with boosters in LaGrange, Ga, at an Auburn Ambush event.

“May use to be my favorite month of college football coaching because your kids have finished finals. That’s their break away from you,” Freeze said. “Your break away from them. Your assistant coaches are on the road in spring evaluations, and you honestly can schedule some things. And now you might try to schedule something and then, ‘Oh, hey coach, this kid wants to come in this day or this day,” and then it’s very difficult to even try to get away from it in May anymore.”

Auburn has signed six players from the transfer portal since the end of spring camp, with the possibility of one or two more entering the program before fall camp.

This would’ve been a dead period before the advent of the free one-time transfer rule. Now the Tigers can add talented players like quarterback Payton Thorne (Michigan State), offensive lineman Jaden Muskrat (Tulsa), and Caleb Burton (Ohio State) later than they would’ve before the changes.

“We’ve benefited from the portal, but I do hope there are people that would listen maybe to a renewed calendar,” Freeze said. “It’s really tough on these assistant coaches. They’re running around on the road, and most of them are younger than me and have younger kids. They finally get to, ‘Man, I get to go home on Thursday or Friday and have a weekend with my family,’ and then they get the call, ‘Hey, we’re bringing in another portal guy, and we’re gonna have him here all weekend so come on back.”

Auburn picked up 19 players through the transfer portal since the end of the season and had 17 depart. If this sounds like a lot, it pales compared to Colorado, where 57 players left and 45 entered since Deion Sanders took over as coach.

Freeze knows fans are excited about recruiting sites ON3 and 247Sports ranking the Tigers’ incoming portal class in their respective top fives. ON3 has the Tigers ranked fifth, with Colorado at No.1. 247 picked the Tigers at three. Freeze appreciates the energy but wants to wait until the games start to determine how well they picked portal players.

“I know there’s a lot of excitement right now with what we’ve done recruiting. And I’m thrilled about that. I’m excited,” Freeze said. But also, I think it’s too early to tell how much we’ve closed the gap on the ones that we have to close the gap on. The one thing I know is that I feel confident in saying that we’ve improved our roster. How much? I don’t think we’ll know until we play some games.”

Auburn opens the 2023 season on Sept 2 at Jordan-Hare against UMass.