Auburn Tigers football coach Hugh Freeze's hot seat just continues to get hotter as the 2025 season approaches.
August 1 has come and gone without any recruiting fireworks, despite Freeze and AU AD John Cohen promising that there'd be significant noise with the shift in NIL regulation. Ultimately, third-party collectives were banned and unbanned, with additional oversight from the government being the compromise.
Not only that, but the expectations are finally at contention for the College Football Playoff after several recruiting cycles of top-20 talent infusions. ESPN's Heather Dinich went as far as claiming Auburn and the Alabama Crimson Tide are both nine-win teams.