When Kenyatta Watson said goodbye to Georgia Tech to join Hugh Freeze and Co. in February earlier this year, he knew exactly what he was signing up for! In the months that followed, the ways of Auburn not only taught Watson what it was like to be a part of the Tigers’ squad but also made a huge room for respect in his heart for Coach Freeze, mainly because of the transparency he followed with his players. Now all that was left was for Freeze’s ways to yield some massive results this season, shattering their streak of average records from the previous years.

All Watson needed to reference to translate the emotion through was one sentence from Deion Sanders. “We coming,” he proudly said, setting off the tone straight for Auburn this season. The phrase from Deion Sanders is slowly gaining the reputation as the ultimate comeback mantra in the CFB world, with more and more people using it. Originally designed for CU, now Auburn has also joined in Sanders‘ “We coming,” revolution to mark the beginning of renewed hopes for the season.

After Gus Malzahn left Auburn in 2020, the program has been struggling to keep up with its winning reputation. Several coaches came and tried their hand, all they were able to yield was an average score with about 5-6 wins and about 7 losses. When Bryan Harsin handled the head coaching reins for 2021-2022, the Tigers had a 6-7 record. Later, when Cadillac Williams became the head coach for just the 2022 year, their wins dropped down to 5-7.

It was in 2023 that Coach Freeze joined Auburn, while he could restore their average of 6-7 the previous year. It was just his first year. The year he took to construct his ways at Auburn, build a staff per him, and mold the student-athletes per his training style. Now that he has everything in place, his new recruiting director believes they too are “coming” for the scoreboard, along with Deion Sanders’ CU, this season.

“Coach [Hugh] Freeze has kinda flipped the culture just from being in the staff meetings with the unbelievable people that I have worked with in Auburn,” Auburn’s director of recruiting research and strategy confessed about the ways coach Freeze has developed during his interview with 247 Sports Unfiltered. “Everybody is like going in the same direction man, it’s scary,” Kenyatta Watson added since he knew that Freeze wasn’t revolutionizing Auburn by just changing the on-field ways.

Auburn and Coach Freeze’s NIL ways

The Tiger team is well aware that they won’t be able to revolutionize Auburn by making changes in just the way they train their athletes. With the rapidly changing NCAA landscapes, Freeze knew he would need to amend how he deals with NIL as well to reduce the chances of tussles with players afterward. The prospect of making an NIL centered-program did sound titillating to Freeze, but he knew better than to give in to the temptation. He rather followed his core values in Auburn that Watson set straight in his interview.

“The biggest thing that I respect the most about Coach Freeze is he always talks to us about speaking the truth. Not lie to these kids and not selling them false hope and dream even when you have the NIL tops coming up,” Kenyatta Watson confessed, expressing the immense respect he holds for the Auburn HC for staying true to his values. Freeze’s selling realism might become his biggest strength this season. The players that would join Auburn would not only be bonding over the transparency there but also over the possibility of Auburn growing in the league for its players to generate more scope for bigger dreams, which is better NIL money.