Mailbag 224: This is the most important Auburn game since...?
This week: Results under Hugh Freeze, selling the Baylor game, running the ball, Steven Pearl, the frontcourt and analytics-maxing
AUBURN — Since the TV time windows for the first several games of the season were announced, a lot has been building up to this Saturday night in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Auburn is going to get a true night game — traditionally where it’s been at its most chaotic — for a rivalry matchup. No more 2:30 tilts. This is an opportunity for the Plains to get as prepped as possible for battle against Georgia.
A few weeks ago, after Auburn was off to a 3-0 start, this Georgia game felt like a huge opportunity. And while the Tigers have fallen flat on offense in two close losses to Oklahoma and Texas A&M, that still hasn’t changed.
On paper, this could be the closest Auburn-Georgia matchup in six years. It might be the Tigers’ best chance to beat the Bulldogs since their last victory back in 2017.
While there are plenty of reasons to doubt that Auburn football can get over that hump and break through for a signature win Saturday night, I think there will be 80,000-plus minds in the bleachers that will be believing at kickoff. Whether the team itself can hold up its end of the bargain, I know that Auburn fans will deliver.
It’s just up to the Tigers on the field to do the same.
Because of that “believe it when you see it” mentality that’s all around this Auburn football program, most of the mailbag questions this week are about basketball… which starts a new era, unofficially, in less than a week. While basketball is the bigger moneymaker here at The Observer these days, that ratio is still an interesting glimpse into the fan base right now.
And the football questions we do have this week are along those same, big-picture lines. I think people know what Auburn football has to do to finally win the big one. Everyone is just waiting to see if it’ll happen.
With that in mind, let’s dive into the mailbag.
I was thinking this week: Is this the most consequential game for Auburn Football since the 2017 Iron Bowl? It truly feels like a fork in the road game for this staff, where a win could propel to something special and a loss probably dooms you and the program starts over AGAIN.
Ric
How about the most consequential game since the 2017 Georgia game, which happened before that Iron Bowl?
I want to package the next two weeks into one “must win” type of scenario for Hugh Freeze and Auburn football. I don’t think Auburn’s season — or the Freeze tenure — is necessarily over with a loss on Saturday to Georgia. There’s a scenario that Auburn could play better on offense and come up short. Georgia is still Georgia, after all.
But a loss with bad offense, again? You would absolutely need to beat Missouri. If not, at that point, you’re going to need to come close to winning out to guarantee an above .500 record. There would be no on-field progress, which was the entire goal of the 2025 season. No progress in three years should be enough to consider a change.
It’s completely fair to wonder, for this staff, if it’s not happening now… when is it going to happen? If two full recruiting cycles and a night home game against the most vulnerable Georgia team in years isn’t enough to get that signature win, what’s it going to take? It feels like other programs are doing more with less, and quicker.