Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday morning and quoted Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell.

“Grit is when you have the ability to overcome adversity in any situation. The ability to push through it, mentally, physically, to overcome. I think that’s what grit is,” Freeze wrote, quoting Campbell.

The timing of the post was eerily appropriate.

For starters, picking Campbell as the guy to quote Thursday night wasn’t a bad move as he and the Lions knocked off the reigning Super Bowl Champions in the opening game of the 2023 NFL season with a 21-20 win over the Kansas City Chiefs Thursday night.

But more than that, Freeze honing in on adversity and the grit it takes to overcome it was ironic given what he and the Tigers encountered at California Memorial Stadium late Saturday evening.

Surely Freeze used Campbell’s quote to hint at the challenges Saturday night’s game in California would present from a travel perspective. Traveling nearly 2,500 miles, jumping over two time zones and having the latest kickoff in program history is nothing to scoff at.

Little did Freeze know, however, Campbell’s quote would go on to sum up the Tigers’ lackluster performance that somehow resulted in a 14-10 win over Cal, helping Auburn improve to 2-0 on the season.

After Auburn escaped Cal with a 14-10 win, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell took to X to lay out an unbelievable statistic.

From 2018 to 2022, college football teams that turned the ball over four times and neglected to tally 15 first downs in a game went 1-65.

The Tigers fit in both those boxes Saturday night as they gave up three fumbles, an interception and only tallied 12 first downs.

“I don’t think we could have played any uglier or sloppier on offense,” Freeze said after the game.

Auburn was outgained by Cal 273 yards to 230 yards. Of Auburn’s 230 yards, 136 came via the ground game as the Tigers’ offense never could quite establish anything through the air.

Payton Thorne, the junior Michigan State transfer, started under center for Auburn and finished the night 9-for-14 through the air for 94 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Sophomore quarterback Robby Ashford added a completed pass, going 1-for-3 for no yardage.

At first glance, Thorne’s stat line doesn’t appear all that bad as he finished the night with a quarterback rating of 153.5. However, the numbers don’t tell the full story of Auburn struggling to find that second dimension of its offense against the Golden Bears.

Auburn completed just six passes in the first half — good for 38 yards, a touchdown and an interception.

Come the third quarter, which saw the Tigers trail 10-7, Auburn completely abandoned the pass game. Thorne nor Ashford attempted a single pass during the third quarter Saturday night.

“I didn’t think Payton was throwing it well, truthfully,” Freeze said of Thorne, who also added a lost fumble to his performance.

But if Auburn was going to win the football game, Thorne would need to find a way to push through — both mentally and physically — just like Campbell’s quote said.

Fortunately for Auburn, Thorne and the Tigers were able to string together a fourth quarter that saw Thorne go 4-for-6 with a touchdown. With 6:31 to play, Thorne connected with tight end Rivaldo Fairweather on a 5-yard 50/50 ball towards the back corner of the endzone, giving Auburn the 14-10 advantage it would need to fend off Cal.

“We were just trying to look for a spark, and we never really found it,” Freeze said. “But we still found a way to score enough points to win.”

However, Auburn would’ve never been in a situation to score enough points to win if not for a brilliant performance from its defense and Cal neglecting to capitalize on a handful of opportunities.

As if containing a Cal offense that tallied just under 670 yards off offense in last week’s win over North Texas wasn’t a tall enough task, the Auburn defense was asked to do so for 35 minutes of Saturday’s game as the Golden Bears won the time of possession battle.

Fortunately for Auburn, in a perfect example of a gritty response to adversity, the Tigers’ defense — led by Eugene Asante’s 12 tackles — stayed 10 toes down all night, answering the call each time their backs were against the wall.

“I’m really proud of our defense and the plan that Ron (Roberts) and his staff had and the effort that they gave with their backs against the wall, it seemed like, time and time again,” Freeze said. “Just continued to find a way to get out of trouble and give us a chance to win the game.”

Admittedly, the Auburn defense received a little help as Cal kicker Michael Luckhurst went 1-for-4 on field goals missing a pair of kicks from 42 yards out and one from 44 yards out.

But at the end of the day, Auburn’s side of the scoreboard showed a higher number than Cal’s side of the scoreboard.

As downright ugly as the Tigers’ first road win of the season was, the old saying “a win is a win” certainly still applies and Auburn isn’t taking being 2-0 for granted.

Winning football games — no matter how sloppy — makes it easier to address the negatives, Freeze says.

“I think in our stage of our building this program, I can go in there Monday and be hard on them. I can call them up and point out, ‘Look, this ain’t gonna get it.’ I think that’s what you’ve got to have, and you can do that much easier after wins than after losses,” Freeze said.

“We’ll point out what they did well, too. But there’s a lot — we cannot play like that offensively and expect to win football games on this schedule we have.”

But the Tigers did Saturday night. And that’s a wildly impressive feat in itself.

Dan Campbell would be proud.