With Saturday’s narrow, 27-24 loss to Alabama in the Iron Bowl, the Auburn Tigers finished their first regular season under Hugh Freeze with a 6-6 record, meaning Auburn will be heading to the postseason after missing the bid last fall.

And as Freeze said after Saturday’s loss, reaching bowl eligibility was goal No. 1 in year No. 1.

“I really didn’t have a vision for this year, other than to try to get us to a bowl game and improve us from week to week,” Freeze said.

Surely beating Auburn’s in-state rival was on that list of goals as well, but that was narrowly missed Saturday as Alabama scored a come-from-behind touchdown in improbable fashion to win its fourth consecutive Iron Bowl.

Here’s everything Freeze said the Monday following Saturday’s heartbreaker in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

— Hugh Freeze opens his press conference in saying that Saturday night’s Iron Bowl was the best college football atmosphere he’s ever experienced. He thanks the Auburn Family. “It will forever be a regret that we didn’t get to celebrate together after it.”

— Freeze says he believes the team played with the passion and energy that’s necessary to compete with one of the top teams in the country. He adds that the sting from the loss hasn’t gotten any better.

— “There’s still a lot of hurt… this game means so much and we let it slip away,” Freeze said. He adds the foundation has been laid and that many of the recruits in attendance saw how special of a place Auburn is and the vision of the program going forward.

— Freeze says that recruiting will start today, and that includes recruiting new guys and recruiting to retain current players as that’s the new world of college football.

— When Freeze was asked about how he woke up feeling on Sunday, he admitted that he didn’t sleep on Saturday night.

— Freeze said he spent a lot of time reliving the game and questioning what, if anything, he could’ve done differently. He adds that he watched the films several times. However, he says if “you’re made of the right stuff,” it makes you determined.

— “I wanted the ball. I felt like we had a good plan offensively,” Freeze said of winning the toss and wanting the football.

— Freeze said he sat with both DJ James and Koy Moore for quite sometime after the game to help console them after both James and Moore were on the losing end of Saturday’s game. “No one hurt more than Koy and DJ,” Freeze said.

— “Coach I let you down, I let you down,” Freeze said, echoing what James told him after the game. “He felt the weight of the world on him.”

— “Keionte (Scott) dings his shoulder on third down and goes to the training room so you have to put a backup in,” Freeze said of Moore being back to receive the punt late in the game. Freeze adds that he didn’t know Scott was hurt in the moment, but Moore has returned punts all year and has the trust of the staff.

— “Your choices are: Do you rush him? If you do, we haven’t gotten him on the ground very much… or you can drop under and play five-under, three-deep… and that’s the choice we made,” Freeze said of the 4th-and-31 defensive play call. “It is something we work every Thursday. That was our two options and that was the one we went with… And we didn’t play with vision on the ball.”

— “The recruits, I think, see it,” Freeze said. “It certainly is a positive for us. I’m not sure they’ve been to a game that’s quite like that.”

— “That is a difficult deal for me,” Freeze says about approaching players who might forego playing in the bowl game. Freeze admits that he hasn’t dealt with it much at his previous stops, but certainly believes in players finishing the season.

— “I have no idea how the makeup of how the 85 will look,” Freeze said of what his roster will look like next season with the transfer portal and high school recruiting. “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that this transfer portal window is as long as it is.”

— “I am absolutely, totally, positively convinced this can be a winning program,” Freeze said when asked what he’s learned through a year at Auburn. “Everything is here for us to build — and I say build, these things don’t happen overnight — to build a championship team.”

— “Only way I know to be is to be totally transparent,” Freeze said when asked how he approaches conversations with players who might be considering transferring. For some, that means telling a player that he might not play much here. For others, that means asking a player to be patient.

— “If you take away Week 11, I think we have made great strides within our culture,” Freeze said. “I do not think you can win big games if you don’t have a large percentage of your team buying into that culture of accountability… I’m still wanting that to grow, but it’s gotten better. I want us to truly be a community.”

— “I’m probably most proud of the Auburn Family that supported us,” Freeze said when asked what he is most proud of in Year 1. “I’m proud of our kids and our fight that they showed. You lose four straight games and that could’ve gone a different way… all of that is encouraging. But it’s hard for me to sit here and say that I am proud of delivering six wins when I feel like it could’ve been more. But the Auburn Family and fans have just blown me away.”

— Freeze says as it pertains to bowl game prep that he likes to let the players enjoy the journey a bit more than grind away. He adds that he will push that some of the younger players — especially defensive backs — get more reps in practice.

— Freeze ends his press conference with an unprompted rant about how Saturday’s result shouldn’t fall solely on the shoulders of DJ James and Koy Moore or the play calls there.