Hugh Freeze looking for buy-in from Auburn roster

As Auburn gets ever-closer to its season opener, Hugh Freeze has watched months of hard work come full circle. But what’s the buy-in from the Auburn roster like at the moment?

Are his guys really ready to attack things the way Freeze wants to attack them?

To that end, Freeze has had an ongoing series throughout the offseason, designed to make sure that expectations are clear across the board and everyone is on the same page about what it expected.

“Well we’ve had our watchman series throughout camp, and I started it and then each offense, defense, special teams presents what that means to them,” Freeze said. “So it’s laid out there what we’re saying and asking everyone to agree upon as to what does that look like for us?”

By now, players should have a pretty clear understanding what it’s supposed to look like. Whether the actual product on the field mirrors that remains a work in progress.

But as far as the buy-in from the Auburn roster, Freeze is pleased.

“Will it ever be 100% buy-in? I don’t know that you ever get that in any family, business, whatever,” he said. “I think that’s kind of an unrealistic expectation. But you start getting 80 to 90% buy-in to that I think you’re onto something. I’m pretty pleased to this point.”

Auburn’s buy-in has been a product of an entire culture flipping. The program operated under a black cloud for the better part of the last year of former coach Bryan Harsin‘s tenure, with storylines off the field often overshadowing the ones on the field.

Though, in fairness, there wasn’t a ton to write home about on the field, either.

Freeze has been clear his group is far from perfect right now, but he can’t find flaw in the buy-in from the Auburn roster.

“We’ve failed some tests in the adverse situations throughout, but I’ve never had a team that didn’t,” he said. “Some of our coaches, we’ve probably failed it too. We have to own what the film says and we’ll own it today, both coaches and players, and come back to work tomorrow and try to clean it up and then hopefully have a great Monday and Tuesday of practice heading into the start of school.”

As Auburn returns to school, the team will enter game prep mode. The Tigers start their season with a game against UMass on Sept. 2.