As his team celebrated around him after achieving its biggest milestone of the season, Auburn first-year head coach Hugh Freeze was pulled aside for his postgame interview with the SEC Network and recalled a quote from a former Arkansas coach for which the field he stood on was named.
“They remember what you do in November,” legendary Arkansas head coach Frank Broyles liked to say.
As Freeze’s team beat Arkansas 48-10 on Saturday in Fayetteville, it will certainly remember what it has done in November. Auburn has won twice this month as part of a three-game winning streak and more importantly with six wins now, Auburn is bowl-eligible after missing a postseason game last season.
“I think it’s huge,” Freeze said in his postgame press conference. “Truthfully this is a big selfish to say probably, but the staff and I, everywhere we’ve been we’ve been able to do that in year one. I would like to keep that streak alive, and we have. More importantly for our seniors, for them to get to experience going out and experiencing the bowl and representing Auburn. Then for the extra practices for our young kids. I thought it was huge. It was an important step in us rebuilding.”
Last week when Auburn beat Vanderbilt, Freeze said he had erased all the themes for the year of his whiteboard and replaced it with one priority: get to a bowl game. At the time he made that change, Auburn was recovering from a four-game losing streak and played poorly enough in that stretch that it led to questions if Auburn could muster up enough offense to take advantage of an easy part of its schedule
Leading into the Arkansas game, Freeze and his players acknowledged what was sitting just in front of them. Getting to a bowl game would be a tangible sign of growth in year one of Freeze. It would mean more practice this team needs for development.
But when that sixth win went final, there wasn’t any different celebration for Auburn on the field in Arkansas. The players ran over to the Auburn fans who traveled as they have after each of their three road wins this season. They high-fived the crowd along the wall and ran back to the locker room. The music didn’t blare out of the locker room. They packed up, changed clothes and got back on the busses to the airport.
They’re looking toward a seventh win now.
“You know how a snowball goes down a mountain, it just keeps growing,” Jack linebacker Jalen McLeod said. “And that’s what we’re going to keep doing. First to New Mexico, then to Bama.”
Yet while the postgame reaction may not have been anything unique, the win was meaningful to players across Auburn’s roster
“It means everything, more so to this program because of what they’ve been through the last couple of years,” Jack linebacker Elijah McAllister said. “I’m just super excited to be a part of this Year 1, setting this foundation for Coach Freeze. And honestly, where the trajectory of this program can go by this foundation in Year 1. It’s big.”
McAllister said it’s especially important to him coming to Auburn this year from Vanderbilt, a program where bowl games don’t come by often. He’s been to one bowl game — the 2018 Texas Bowl against Baylor — and lost. To him, going to a bowl game this year just ensures he’ll get to play one more college football game.
McAllister said his leadership as a team captain in his first year at Auburn is his X-factor. He compared it to the football video game Madden. Each player in the game has a designated X-factor. McAllister said safety Jaylin Simpson’s might be interceptions, or McLeod’s his pass rushing. His is within the locker room, he said, which played a key role in Auburn bouncing back from the four-game losing streak with a three-game winning streak.
