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Auburn Tigers first-year head coach Hugh Freeze has coached in the Southeastern Conference before with the Ole Miss Rebels. He knows a thing or two about rivalries, but had some interesting things to say ahead of his first Georgia-Auburn game.
Freeze and Auburn are 3-1 to start his career with the Tigers. Auburn is coming off a 27-10 loss on the road at Texas A&M. The Tigers are glad to return home, but things do not get any easier for Auburn.
Buy Bulldogs TicketsOn Sept. 30 at 3:30 p.m. ET, Auburn hosts the defending back-to-back national champion Georgia Bulldogs. Georgia is 4-0 to begin the 2023 college football season and is the No. 1 team in the US LBM Coaches Poll.
What did Hugh Freeze have to say ahead of the Georgia game?
Freeze is glad to be back home
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Auburn has won four straight games at home. Hugh Freeze knows that playing at home gives the Tigers a big advantage.
Thank God we’re in Jordan-Hare. I know it will be electric, and we’re going to get the kids that are healthy enough ready to play and compete in this game.
The Auburn game will be first-year starting Georgia quarterback Carson Beck’s first road game.
Freeze on the Georgia-Auburn rivalry
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Georgia has won six straight games in the rivalry. The Bulldogs have won back-to-back national championships while Auburn is trying to rebuild under first-year head coach Hugh Freeze.
It’s the oldest rivalry in the South. I don’t sense that it has the hatred that is in some other rivalries I’ve been a part of. Nonetheless, I think it’s intense. I’ll find out.
Freeze on using love, not hate as motivation
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Hugh Freeze does not think hatred should be a primary motivator even in a rivalry game.
I’m not big on hate. I’m big on that this game means so much to so many people so we should compete in a way out of love for our people. Not necessarily for hate to other people. That’s kind of the way I operate. I hope we compete because we love Auburn, and it means something to the Auburn people to compete against Georgia. That will be my approach. Love is a great motivator for me.
The Auburn-Alabama rivalry is certainly Auburn’s biggest and most fierce rivalry of the year, but Georgia-Auburn is probably No. 2 for the Tigers.
Freeze unaware UGA made national championship in second year under Kirby Smart
Here is Hugh Freeze learning Kirby Smart led Georgia to a national championship game appearance in his second season in Athens 😂 pic.twitter.com/wbNLkGa5vG
— Dayne Young (@dayneyoung) September 25, 2023
Freeze is optimistic about Auburn's defense
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Auburn’s defense gave up 27 points in the road loss to Texas A&M, but the Tigers did a very good job of limiting the Texas A&M offense. Auburn allowed only 193 passing yards to the Aggies and returned a fumble for a touchdown.
I thought they played extremely hard and (were) shorthanded. Really, easily could have probably held (Texas A&M) to around 13 points. The two touchdown passes we were down to are third-team weak safety.
Freeze is not as confident in Auburn’s passing attack, which has not had a 100-yard passer in an SEC game since Oct. 29, 2022.