5.18.24 Football Articles

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si.com

Auburn Recruiting: News For Three Birmingham Parker Prospects

Brian Smith

2–3 minutes

Last night’s Birmingham (Ala.) Parker versus Trussville (Ala.) Hewitt-Trussville spring game was a chance to catch up with three top prospects about their recruitments. All three were Parker prospects and have been recruited by Hugh Freeze and the Auburn Tigers.

First up, a consensus national top-10 recruit, Na’eem Offord. The cornerback has been committed to Ohio State since making his pledge earlier this year on Feb. 4. His recruitment is still not over.

“I’m going to go to Oregon this weekend,” Offord began. “It’s an unofficial visit. I’m going to take an official visit (to Oregon) later.”

He recently told 247, “I don't know yet, June 14th it's either going to be Oregon or Florida. Still trying to decide." Offord has already slated the June 21 weekend for his Ohio State official visit.

Other teams still attempting to flip his commitment include Auburn, Alabama, and Georgia, among many college football programs. After the combined intel has been processed, it’s hard to say if Offord’s recruitment will conclude by the end of summer. National Signing Day will be on Dec. 4. Parker also has another top cornerback prospect.

(L-R) Jourdin Crawford, Na'eem Offord, and Timothy Merritt / Brian Smith-Auburn Daily

Timothy Merritt has reached 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds. Having watched his backpedal and overall athleticism, it was obvious to see why numerous programs offered him a scholarship.

Miami, Arkansas, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Auburn, Alabama, and several other programs have been involved. Merritt has been trying to set his June official visits but surprisingly did not mention AU or Bama among them.

When asked about the two in-state SEC schools, he had an explanation. “I’m going to visit Auburn and Alabama during the season.” Finally, Auburn defensive tackle commitment Jourdin Crawford commented about his recruitment.

“I’m going to take my official visit (to Auburn) during the season.” Crawford has been pledged to the Tigers since Oct. 16, 2023

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247sports.com

Freeze Everything in the building feels better entering Year 2 at Auburn

Nathan King

4–5 minutes

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — The vibes are high for Hugh Freeze — at least relative to a hectic first season leading the Tigers.

In mid-May— with Auburn's work in the transfer portal nearly complete, highly rated recruits soon to hit campus, and Freeze soon able to take a step back to assess his blueprint for the 2024 season before fall camp rolls around — Auburn's head coach is able to hold his chin a bit higher when walking into the Tigers' facility.

"Everything in the building feels better," Freeze said Thursday before Jimmy Rane's charity golf scholarship ceremony in Montgomery. "Hopefully that shows in the win column, also. I don't know that. But I do know we're going to be a better football team."

Freeze has spoken often since the early stages of the offseason — when the Tigers turned over half their assistant staff, including both coordinators — that his familiarity with his coaches has increased substantially as compared to his inaugural season on the Plains. Even before coordinators Philip Montgomery and Ron Roberts were both out, Freeze admitted before Auburn's bowl game that putting together a first-year staff can always be tricky because of the inherent hastiness a new head coach must operate under while in the infancy of a program rebuild. 

So this time around, Freeze opted for more names he knows. He hired Derrick Nix, who served on Freeze's assistant staff for all five of his seasons at Ole Miss, as his offensive coordinator and running backs coach. Kent Austin, who coached under Freeze at Liberty, was elevated to quarterbacks coach after serving an off-the-field analyst role at Auburn last season. Promoted defensive line coach Vontrell King-Williams was a grad assistant at Liberty. Even the likes of former Liberty assistant Maurice Harris, who coached receivers for Freeze at Liberty, is now in a support staff role at Auburn as director of football and recruiting relations.

In all, including tight ends coach Ben Aigauama outside linebackers coach Josh Aldridge and cornerbacks coach Wesley McGriff, six of Auburn's 10 assistants worked under Freeze in some capacity before arriving on the Plains.

"I don't know if I can judge the value of it, but it's comfortable and it's worked for me in the past," Freeze told Auburn Undercover in an interview last month. "I have guys, when I say something, they immediately know what I'm talking about. And they can, in return, say, 'Here's the issue, coach,' and be in that position. … It's just much more comfortable."

Rane, a prominent Auburn booster and board of trustees member, expressed his confidence in the direction of the football program under Freeze, who's looking to improve Auburn in a comparable manner to his previous jobs at Ole Miss and Liberty, where the teams saw significant win improvements compared to before his arrival.

"It's obvious to anybody that follows football that his teams were better than the ones before him," Rane said Thursday. "I don't have any reason to think he will not work hard and improve. I'm very happy with him."

Can Auburn follow that same path in Year 2? The Tigers' 6-7 campaign had a sour finish, including two painful losses to end the regular season, but Freeze immediately turned around and secured the nation's No. 8 recruiting class, then reworked his coaching staff.

Auburn has also been labeled a winner in the transfer portal, particularly in the spring window, where the Tigers added a trio of defensive linemen, plus Penn State transfer receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith, who adds more than 1,700 career yards and 11 touchdowns. 

For now — until preseason camp gets rolling in early August —all Freeze can control is that his roster, his staff and the overall feeling in Auburn's facility feels better than it did just a few months ago at the tail-end of the 2023 season.

"We improved our roster through recruiting — what that means, I don't really know yet what that looks like in Year 2," Freeze said. "But there's no question in my mind that the roster has improved, the culture is improving, the work ethic, the chemistry."

*** Subscribe to Auburn Undercover for the latest news and intel, podcasts, recruiting coverage and more ***

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al.com

How Hugh Freeze juggles coaching and his family during a chaotic time in college football

Updated: May. 17, 2024, 12:40 p.m.|Published: May. 17, 2024, 12:29 p.m.

7–9 minutes

Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze admits that he’s not much of a “Bahamas guy.”

However, when his three adult daughters approached him and asked that he take a bit of time off in June to take a family vacation to the Bahamas, Freeze obliged ― because that’s what dads do.

“We’re taking a whole family trip at the end of June. Grandbabies, daughters, their husbands and we’re going to the Bahamas. I’ve never done that before,” Freeze said in an interview with AL.com at the Jimmy Rane Foundation charity golf event in Montgomery on Thursday. “I said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ Because you’ve gotta make time for it and certainly you better make it intentional or it won’t happen.”

Approaching his second season on The Plains, Freeze hasn’t been taken aback by the demands of the job. He knows it’s what he signed himself up for when he became a head coach and understands it often comes at the expense of time with his wife, children and now grandchildren.

That said, anytime there’s a sliver of opportunity for him to spend time with his family, Freeze knows he has to jump on it.

Last weekend, Freeze had an opening in his schedule and treated his wife Jill to a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the two stayed in a cottage after visiting with friends in Lynchburg, Virginia on Thursday and Friday.

The purpose of the quick getaway was simple.

“Just to show her, hopefully, how much I appreciate her and the role she plays in everything I do and the role she played in our two daughters who are now mothers,” Freeze said. “They’ve witnessed a great mother. I think mothers are the backbone of our families and Jill has been a rockstar in that.”

Jill Freeze has navigated 13 seasons as a head coach’s wife — 11 of which came in the Division I ranks during her husband’s time at Arkansas State, Ole Miss, Liberty and now Auburn.

However, a lot has changed since Hugh Freeze took the reins of Arkansas State in 2011, his first Division I job.

From the sounds of it, Freeze has spent plenty of time bending his wife’s ear about the current state of college football.

“My wife has made me promise I’m through complaining. But it’s just difficult. It’s difficult to manage,” Freeze said on April 2 when asked what spring looks like for college football coaches these days.

The current college football calendar has been a whipping post for criticism from Freeze in the past six months.

Freeze especially laid into the calendar on Dec. 16 as he met with reporters the same day the Tigers opened postseason practice in preparation for Auburn’s date with Maryland in the Music City Bowl.

At the time, not only were Freeze and his coaching staff tasked with trying to prep the Tigers for their bowl game, but they were also grinding to keep Auburn’s top 10 recruiting class together, all while still navigating the winter transfer portal opening, which spanned from Dec. 4 to Jan. 2.

“I think our calendar is extremely messed up. It’s not good for high school recruiting, portal recruiting, managing your own team, getting ready for bowl prep,” Freeze said. “I think our calendar needs a serious, serious look at it for what’s best for our game. It’s hard for any of us to truly manage all of it.”

But December is always a busy month. The spring, though, has changed significantly.

Freeze used to love watching the calendar flip from April to May as it meant signing day had come and gone, spring football had concluded, players were in a discretionary period and coaches weren’t allowed to go on the road to recruit.

“Used to, May was like my favorite month,” Freeze said. “It’s really a time where you can go an schedule some stuff and breathe and relax.”

But that, along with the rest of the college football landscape, has since changed.

“Now, the recruiting never stops,” Freeze said Thursday.

In the current recruiting calendar, the span of April 15 to May 25 is a “contact period,” in which programs are capped at 140 recruiting-person days. Anytime a coach on staff engages in an off-campus recruiting activity with a recruit, the program loses one of its allotted recruiting-person days.

Being in a contact period also means programs can host recruits on campus.

“We’ve got official visits this weekend and on the 31st,” Freeze said. “But still, May is a time when you can recharge a little bit.”

But even up in the mountains with his wife on Mother’s Day weekend, Freeze admits that it’s easy for a coach’s mind to wander.

“You still feel like you have to stay on top of recruiting, even though you wish… it’s just that everything is so expediated now,” Freeze said.

Freeze continued to say that May, July and February are the only three months out of the entire year that slow down in the slightest for college coaches.

“You’re not going to rest any other months,” Freeze said. “You’re not going to make your wife, kids… you’re not going to make them a priority those other months. I know that sounds terrible and it’s not that you don’t make them feel important, it’s just you don’t have enough hours.”

It’s a hard truth that Freeze has learned firsthand during his coaching career.

Now back at the helm of an SEC program, it’s Freeze’s job to foster a working environment that puts family at the forefront.

Among other coaches facing similar balances is Auburn offensive coordinator Derrick Nix, who was hired in January and is the father to a young daughter. Meanwhile, Auburn tight ends coach Ben Aigamaua has two children under the age of 10, while edge coach Josh Aldridge also has a pair of young children.

Then there’s wide receivers coach Marcus Davis, who managed to help Auburn land a historic haul of wide receivers, all while having a 2-year-old at home.

“Family is first, they better do it,” Freeze said. “I do think I give ours more downtime than any other staff, yet it’s still very difficult. But like this month of May, they’re on the road recruiting. Here’s your assigned days. You have 13 days or you have 15 days or whatever your assigned days are that you have.

“Those other days? You can do some work from home. Schedule the time that works for your wife and your children because, like I said, the month of May and July and February, you better take some time to make sure your family is in good shape.”

But as Auburn’s head coach, Freeze knows that has to start with him and that he needs to lead by example.

“I really believe the amount of chaos and the amount of lack of peace we experience as people – whether it’s your job or my job – I really believe it’s a direct proportion to our busyness,” Freeze said. “And I can get really busy thinking, ‘If I don’t do this, visit with recruits today, whatever, then it’s not going to get done.’ And all of a sudden my day is gone and I haven’t really had time to rest, refocus, relax.”

And that’s why Freeze will be loading his suitcase with bathing suits and flipflops come late June despite not being a “Bahamas guy.”

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