Hugh Freeze and the Auburn Tigers’ losing skid continued Saturday night as they suffered a 28-21 loss to the 13th-ranked Ole Miss Rebels.

For the second time in four weeks, a stadium full of Auburn fans were sent home discussing the would’ve and could’ve beens after watching their Tigers fall to another ranked opponent in a one-score game at home.

The going had officially gotten tough, as evident of the boos that bellowed off the walls of Jordan-Hare Stadium in the third quarter as the Auburn offense sat stuck with its tires spinning. Except this week, it felt as though the Tigers themselves were the ones pointing a water hose at dry dirt and making it a muddy mess.

“Offensively we kept shooting ourselves in the foot it felt like and they made some plays too,” Freeze said. “But some of it was of our own doing.”

Auburn just couldn’t get out of its own way Saturday night, making silver linings hard to find.

However, if one pulled their eyes away from the scoreboard and box score and instead looked in the direction of the southwest endzone of Jordan-Hare Stadium, those silver linings are there — there were about 30 of them there.

Saturday night’s game at Jordan-Hare Stadium — albeit against the 13th-ranked team in the nation — wasn’t a marquee game that featured an opponent like Alabama or Georgia. But that didn’t stop Freeze and his staff from making sure it was still an environment they could capitalize on from a recruiting standpoint.

In the Thursday leading up to the Ole Miss game, Freeze remarked on the importance of gamedays from a recruiting perspective during his time on Auburn’s Tiger Talk radio show.

“I don’t even get to think about the game until literally… I’ll probably get out there with about 30 minutes left in warmups and you know it’s go time then,” Freeze said Thursday. “I just think I have to recruit so hard right now and there’s so many good players coming to our games and I feel like I have to meet with them.”

With 40 minutes left before kickoff on Saturday, Freeze wasn’t in the locker room doing last-minute preparations, hyping his team up during warmups or scouting the Rebels as they warmed up.

Instead, Freeze stood at the midfield Auburn logo along with a congregation of about 20 high school and junior college prospects. He’d throw his arm behind a neck of one while shaking hands with another.

While Freeze understands he was hired to win football games, he also understands he was hired to repair a program that hadn’t seen a true effort in recruiting in many years.

Wanna talk about pointing a water hose at dirt and making it a muddy mess? Putting recruiting on the backburner in the SEC will certainly do that.

Heck, some might even say that’ll turn dirt to quicksand.

But Freeze has made a strong effort to kink the water hose pointed at Auburn’s recruiting situation. And that continued Saturday night under the lights of Jordan-Hare Stadium, where the Freeze and the Tigers hosted approximately 30 recruits.

“We’ve got another big group coming this weekend,” Freeze said Thursday. “We got two official visits — two guys we really want — and plus a bunch of five- and four-star kids that there will be at the game.”

Auburn’s official-visitors list featured a pair of JUCO prospects in 3-star defensive lineman Brien Taylor and 3-star safety Laquan Robinson.

While Taylor holds offers to continue his playing career at a four-year university from schools like Florida, Georgia, Oregon and Tennessee, should he accept Auburn’s offer, he’d add himself to a list of former Buccaneers that made their way to The Plains.

Another example? Cam Newton.

Robinson, on the other hand, visited Auburn by way of Holmes Community College in Greenville, Ala. to take a look at what the Tigers have to offer.

Fortunately, the Auburn Family showed out in the masses for the first true night game of the season.

Joining the pair of JUCO commits in the southwest endzone Saturday night were a slew of blue-chip targets.

Ryan Williams, a 5-star wide receiver committed to Alabama, was on hand for the game against Ole Miss, indicating that Freeze and the Tigers hadn’t backed off their pursuit of the No. 1 player in the state of Alabama.

Auburn also hosted wide receiver Caleb Cunningham and cornerback Na’eem Offord — a pair of uncommitted 5-stars in the 2025 class.

All the while, as evident by the number of Auburn commits in attendance, Freeze’s recruiting doesn’t end until the ink has dried on a player’s national letter of intent.

Wide receiver Perry Thompson and linebacker Demarcus Riddick — two 5-stars that committed to the Tigers over the summer — arrived to Jordan-Hare Stadium together on Saturday.

Meanwhile, 10 other Auburn commits spanning the 2024 and 2025 classes were welcomed to The Plains Saturday.

“I’ve said since I got here — and I hope everybody keeps hearing me — but you know, the ‘24 and ‘25 class will really tell the story of how fast we can close the gap on the upper echelon in this conference,” Freeze said Thursday.

Folks will say what they will about the results Freeze has come up with on the scoreboard through seven games as Auburn’s head coach. But you’ve gotta hope they’re considering not only the muddy-mess-of-a-roster that was inherited last November, but the legwork that’s gotta go into getting it fixed.

And as indicated by the mass of recruits and their families sitting just beyond the south endzone wall on Saturday night, it’s clear the legwork is there — which is a notable change when compared to the last staff at Auburn.