Hugh Freeze explains Auburn's approach to mental preparation for games
It’s a new era on the Plains, with Hugh Freeze taking over as the Auburn Tigers‘ head coach. With that has come high expectations in a highly anticipated season for Auburn fans.
One of the most important things for Auburn is going to enter games with the right mental approach to the season. For Freeze, finding the right mental approach has been one of the program’s goals since he first got there.
“That’s something that we’ve tried to start instituting since we got here,” Hugh Freeze said. “Our theme since we got here has been flip the script, and it’s really about re-wiring your mind of how you prepare for these 12 opportunities that we’re given. It’s something that has to be done daily that whatever is driving your beliefs are gonna drive some type of behavior and that behavior is gonna create some habits and that habits will ultimately give us all our destiny.”
Last season, Auburn entered with distractions around head coach Bryan Harsin and his status within the program. He was eventually let go at the end of October and Auburn ended a frustrating season at 5-7. Expectations are high now in the Hugh Freeze era.
“The more of those days that we stack, that we’re doing things the right way with the right attitude and the right passion, then the more prepared we’ll be, and I think we’re still ongoing in that,” Freeze said. “That’s still a journey and it will be throughout this season. To this point, I think we’ve made progress and made strides in the right direction, and hopefully that shows on Saturday.”
Auburn opens its season at home against UMass. The Tigers will be a heavy favorite against a UMass team that hasn’t won more than one game in a season since 2018. Still, the Minutemen got started on the right foot with a Week 0 win on the road against New Mexico State.
Hugh Freeze on releasing depth charts
With the first week of college football here, depth charts are getting released across the country. However, Nick Saban created a minor controversy over his decision to not release a depth chart. It seems that’s one thing that Auburn’s Hugh Freeze agrees with him about, as Freeze condemned the use of depth charts.
“I’m going to be totally candid with you: I don’t even have a depth chart. So, I don’t know where that came from. I guess that’s from the SID world. I don’t do depth charts. It’s really nonsense,” Freeze said.
“I mean you’re going to play your four to five outside receivers and your two to three inside receivers in our system. I don’t care who runs out there with the first group or the second group. They freely rotate. I don’t make much of those depth charts. That don’t fly with me. [It] doesn’t work.”