Back on the upslope of a streak-filled season, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze made a point to greet the Auburn fans in Nashville. This didn’t feel like a typical road game, he said, after Auburn’s 31-15 win over Vanderbilt. The stadium was full of nearly Auburn fans who just wanted something to be hopeful for.

That hope is going to start small, and it centers on what Auburn can do in year one under its new head coach: get to a bowl game. Freeze said he isn’t a man who is big on long-term goal setting, but this one is something he’s paying attention to.

Auburn’s bowl eligibility hopes were teetering after four consecutive losses. It wasn’t that Auburn lost — it was favored to lose all four of those games — but how it lost with ineffective offense.

It then came back and won two games it was favored to win. And again, it was the way they won that stood out. The offense worked. The Auburn fans who serenaded Freeze in a takeover of their opponent’s stadium saw that. And they certainly are thinking of a December trip.

“It would mean a lot,” cornerback D.J. James said of chasing a sixth win. “Everybody’s working toward it, everybody wants it — and you can see it. From an offensive and defensive standpoint, everybody wants it.”

Auburn isn’t quite there yet. The win Saturday evening in Nashville was just the fifth win. It takes six to go bowling. With three remaining games — at Arkansas next week then two straight home games against New Mexico State and Alabama — Auburn knows it has a real chance to get a sixth win.

And while the message around the team is taking each week and each game one at a time, it would be wrong to stay the prospect of a bowl game — and the extra practices that come with it — isn’t a topic of conversation around the Auburn football building.

“I did kind of go away and I made it clear that is a goal of ours in Year 1,” Freeze said. “One step closer, but we’ve got some hard games left, too.”

What Freeze went away from was his themes from the first half of the season. He erased all those off a whiteboard in the team’s facility.

That board is much simpler now. It just listed out Auburn’s final five games. And he left a simple message.

“The first logistical step in our rebuild is gained bowl eligibility,” Freeze said he told his team.

Auburn didn’t go to a bowl game last year. It has played three total bowl games since 2018. It lost all of them.

So chasing bowl eligibility now would be a tangible mark of improvement. Ther are two steps down, now. Auburn won each of the first two games on that board.

Freeze reminded reporters he’s been to a bowl game in his first season as a head coach at every team he’s taken over: Arkansas State, Ole Miss and Liberty.

Making a bowl game, even at just a potential 6-6 record, is important because of the extra practice it would give Auburn. Don’t get to six wins? Official practices end the moment the final whistle of the Iron Bowl blows. But get to six? Auburn would have weeks of practices leading up to a bowl game likely close to Christmas.

For a team where Freeze has often discussed its youth, its inexperience and its need for development, the extra weeks of practice would be undeniably important.

“No. 1, you want to do it for your seniors,” Freeze said. “No. 2, you want to do it for your fans. But No. 3, you want the extra practices and another chance to compete for Auburn and to put our kids in that scenario of playing another quality opponent in a bowl game.”

It still has to get one more win. But Auburn’s turnaround these last two games with wins over Mississippi State and Vanderbilt have shown growth of the struggling offense. Auburn has no longer used a quarterback rotation and quarterback Payton Thorne looks more comfortable. Running back Jarquez Hunter is playing his best football after a career-high 183 rushing yards against Vanderbilt.

If Auburn can to six wins, Freeze plans to celebrate at least one more time. He may celebrate at those extra practices, too.

“We felt like it was kinda like a home game or like a bowl game atmosphere anyways,” safety Jaylin Simpson said. “We already knew Vandy wasn’t the best team, but I mean, they’re still an SEC opponent, so you gotta go out there and give your all and play four quarters. So glad we got the dub. One more and then we’re on our way.”

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]