Last season, the Auburn Tigers held an edge over the mighty Alabama Crimson Tide. It came down to 4th and 31, and miraculously, Crimson Tide wide receiver Isaiah Bond scored a touchdown to lift Alabama over their rival and into the SEC Championship Game.
The victory proved consequential, as the Tide went on to defeat the Georgia Bulldogs, win the Southeastern Conference, and make the College Football Playoff again. Auburn had Alabama dead to rights, but the Crimson Tide still prevailed. Given the Iron Bowl’s intensity and enormous stakes, the loss stung Auburn fans hard. Head coach Hugh Freeze, who’s defeated Nick Saban before and given him hell, couldn’t get it done.
Months later, that loss to Alabama still eats away at him.
“How did 4th and 31 impact your life?” Marty Smith asked Freeze on Marty and McGee. Freeze sighed and emphatically said, “We gotta coach better.”
He continued on the deflating loss to the Crimson Tide. “If you’re not accountable through the week in little things, it will show up on 3rd down. It’ll show up on 4th down, and so some of that fault is the culture. Some of it is coaching. Maybe we didn’t coach it good enough.”
Freeze then reacted to the loss again. “Not winning that game sucked,” he said. “It stunk. It was disappointing and hard, but, at the same time, I didn’t think our roster was as good as theirs. And it gave me even more confidence that Auburn can return to one of the top programs in teh country pretty fast. Because we went toe-to-toe with them and should have won the game truthfully. So it’s a mixed bag of ‘This is awful, but man, we can play with ’em.'”
Hugh Freeze: “Nick (Saban) is incredible, but I should have four wins against him.”#MartyandMcGee Talkin’ Season: Tonight at 8pm ET on @SECNetwork. pic.twitter.com/NoSpoG70Bn
— Marty Smith (@MartySmithESPN) August 12, 2024
Glass half-full, glass half-empty.
