Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze walks off the field after a loss to Georgia during the second half of an NCAA football game, Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023, in Auburn, Ala. The potential future filed out one by one from the doors of the Harbert Family Recruiting Center and lined the inside of the plastic orange fencing. The high schoolers and their families seemed to just keep coming, filling the sidewalk from the doors all the way down to the intersection of South Donahue Drive and Heisman Drive.
The recruits weren’t taking part in the walk themselves, but were surrounded by thousands of Auburn fans covered in orange outfits. This wasn’t the recruits’ Tiger Walk yet, but instead an experience of a tradition that could very well become theirs. “I feel like in order for us to get to where we want to be which is winning SEC championships, winning national championships, we have to get the top recruits in the nation,” Alston said during fall camp. “Like we have to get them. I think we’re on a good start right now, we just have to keep it going.”Freeze said there would be around 70 recruits on campus. In reality, that number was a little below 60.
But more importantly, it was about Auburn’s long-term plan. It isn’t about winning now, albeit that wouldn’t hurt. It’s about competing seriously with a comparable roster three to four years down the road. The building for that starts on weekends like this. For the last two weeks, Freeze has discussed Auburn’s talent gap with regard to the rest of the SEC. And he’s right. When Auburn played Texas A&M, it was facing a roster that landed 14 five-star recruits in the time between Auburn’s previous most recent five-star commitment from Owen Pappoe in 2019 and then five-star linebacker Demarcus Riddick announcing his decision to come to Auburn in July. Thompson came just days after.
What those recruits heard inside the facility was a pitch to Freeze’s resume and development. One flier handed out showed the progressively improving stats for a handful of quarterbacks he’d coach. There were also papers passed around on Freeze’s ability to consistently bring in highly-ranked recruiting classes each year.