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
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
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
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
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.
