Auburn is still in the Blue-Chip Ratio... but it has a lot more work to do now.

The Tigers still reach the baseline of talent needed to compete for a national title. However, the landscape is getting a lot tougher.

HC Hugh Freeze (Austin Perryman/Auburn Athletics)

Six months ago, when Hugh Freeze was introduced as Auburn’s new head football coach, he made a statement that spoke volumes about the situation he inherited.

When asked if he would call offensive plays on the Plains, Freeze noted that he had done that his “whole career” and then went for a big-picture turn.

“Honestly, sitting here today and contemplating, maybe in the new world of rebuilding the Auburn football team and the work it’s going to take to capture the players and recruit — maybe I should get some help in that,” Freeze said.

Freeze ultimately hired Philip Montgomery, the former Tulsa head coach who had made a name for himself as a high-octane offensive coordinator at Baylor. (Freeze has said that he will have some input in play-calling with Montgomery, particularly when it comes to the up-tempo game.)

But the bigger deal was Freeze’s insight into the Auburn roster. In the SEC recruiting arms race that is getting increasingly tougher by the year, Auburn has fallen behind.

Last week, 247Sports’ Bud Elliott released his annual “Blue-Chip Ratio,” which has become a go-to resource in the world of college football.

The BCR is a simple calculation: In order to have enough talent to win a national championship, teams need to sign more blue-chip players (4- and 5-stars) than 2- and 3-stars over their last four recruiting classes.

In the championship game era — one that spans the former BCS, the current College Football Playoff and the modern age of recruiting rankings — no team that has ever won it all has been below 50% in the BCR. The closest is 2010 Auburn, which had one of the most talented quarterbacks ever to play the game in Cam Newton.

Teams have come close over the years, and some have even played for a national championship, like Oregon in 2014 and TCU in 2022. But 2014 Ohio State (68% BCR) and 2022 Georgia (77%) ultimately clobbered them on the big stage.

Since Elliott first came up with the BCR at SB Nation during the 2013 season, Auburn has been one of a select few teams that have made the cut every single year.

And that includes 2023, with the Tigers sitting at No. 16 out of 16 teams at 51%. As friend of the newsletter Brandon Marcello tweeted last week, “Bryan Harsin was *this* close to dragging Auburn out of the BCR.”

Freeze’s predecessor has been criticized for a lot during his brief time at Auburn, but the recruiting situation is the most damaging one long-term.

After the firing of Gus Malzahn at the end of a COVID-affected regular season, Auburn hired Harsin and signed a transitional recruiting class that only ranked No. 19 in the country with just seven blue-chip players out of 18 overall signees. (A little more than two years later, all seven of those blue-chips are no longer with the program.)

A year later, the Tigers fell to the No. 21 overall class. This time, Auburn had eight 4-stars from the high school ranks but only signed 18 players overall. In terms of quality talent and quality depth, the Tigers went backwards in a hurry.

In fact, Auburn’s 2023 survival in the BCR has infinitely more to do with Freeze than Harsin.

Auburn’s 2023 recruiting class bumped up to No. 18 nationally when it was all said and done. Of the 10 blue-chip players Auburn signed in 2013, only three of them committed when Harsin was the head coach.

One committed under interim head coach Cadillac Williams (Darron Reed), and the other six — including four of the top five in the class — committed after Freeze was hired. Without that turnaround, the Tigers wouldn’t still be in the BCR.

But it’s important to remember two things: The first, in Elliott’s own words…

The Blue-Chip is just the minimum amount of talent needed to win the national championship.

It is not a requirement to make the College Football Playoff. Making the playoff does require some level of talent, but schedule also matters quite a bit.

It is also not a substitute for culture, coaching, player development, etc.

And the second is that just because Auburn is in the Blue-Chip Ratio doesn’t mean it’s where it needs to be in terms of talent.

Freeze and his staff have a ton of work to do now.