In New York City, the ball will drop in Times Square late Sunday night.

In Nashville, where Hugh Freeze and the Auburn football team have spent the last week as they prepped for and played in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl, the city will ring in the New Year with a “music note drop” at Bicentennial Park.

But after Saturday’s ugly, 31-13 loss to the Maryland Terrapins to put a bookend on the 2023 season, the chances of Freeze and the Tigers sticking around to celebrate the New Year are slim.

After all, Freeze revealed his New Year’s resolution Saturday night. And considering the depth to it, it’s probably best he get started working on it as soon as possible.

“I think our staff and our young men, starting with our staff, starting with me, have got to create a standard of the way we consistently work, consistently compete and figure our how to be a true team,” Freeze said. “That is my goal in 2024.”

Saturday’s comments from Freeze weren’t the first of the season in that vein.

“The culture has gotten better. The standard has gotten better. The accountability has gotten better,” Freeze said in a press conference on Nov. 27 – two days after Auburn’s regular season finale against Alabama. “I’m hopeful I can continue to build the community aspect of what a team really is.”

In that same answer, Freeze mentioned things like living in an era that means “dating through Snapchat” and how he wishes players would “hang up the headsets” and instead of playing video games after practice, go have real conversations with one another.

It’s crystal-clear Auburn’s locker room isn’t a tight-knit and connected as Freeze would like.

After Saturday’s loss to Maryland, when asked about the team’s disconnect, Freeze chalked it up to a disease he believes is plaguing society.

“It’s just the disease of me. I think that’s in a lot of areas of life now and we’re not exempt to it in our locker room,” Freeze said. “I think we’ve got to face it head on.”

In the words of author and legendary NBA head coach Pat Riley, the “disease of me” is the diagnosis for those who put “personal agendas before organizational success.”

And that’s what Freeze believes is plaguing Auburn’s locker room.

In talking with some of Auburn’s players, they tend to agree with their head coach.

“Completely agree with coach,” Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne said following Saturday’s postseason loss when asked about player-led leadership. “We did not have enough of that this year by any means. It showed.”

Thorne added he was looking forward to getting “the guys who need to be there” together. And even if it takes five hours, them sitting down and deciding what they need to be and what they want their future to look like.

“We have to decide what we want. And when we decide what we want, we’re going to write it down and then we have a template to hold each other accountable to,” Thorne said. “That will be something that will be happening soon.”

Meanwhile, linebacker Eugene Asante is looking forward to establishing the standard during winter workouts.

“It 100% starts with winter workouts,” Asante said. “Because you’re putting your body in a condition to where it’s hard, you don’t want to do it, your body’s worn down — but that’s when the mental game kicks in. Instead of them leaning on quitting or just tapping out, it’s allowing them to push themselves beyond their limits. And that’s what shows up on the football field.”

For freshman defensive end Keldric Faulk, setting the standard starts with the intricate and often-overlooked things like arriving to team meetings on time and looking coaches in the eyes when they’re speaking to you.

“The standard starts in meetings,” Faulk said. “It’s little stuff like that.”

Whether establishing the standard starts with a five-hour meeting, winter workouts or making eye contact with coaches, it’s evident it’s something that needs attention.

And nothing anyone said pointed to that more than a quip from tight end Rivaldo Fairweather.

“Coach Freeze said, ‘We’re going to set a standard here’ and it’s a lot of loose leashes around here on this team that we need to get rid of and just find a group of people that’s going to really come together as a team and lock in and put their life on the line to win a game here,” said Fairweather.

However, as important as it is for Auburn’s players to recognize the disconnect and map out plans to resolve it, in the grand scheme of things, the fix starts with Freeze.

The good news is he knows that.

“I don’t need anyone to tell me when we don’t measure up. That starts with me.” Freeze said to open his press conference Saturday night. “To not perform any better in games this year like this, I promise you that — I don’t need someone to tell me I didn’t get it done.”