Hugh Freeze identifies the main pillar of his plan to build Auburn program

Hugh Freeze was officially introduced as Auburn‘s new head football coach on Tuesday, which was also the first time he was able to meet his team. During his press conference, Freeze spoke about his first introduction to his new team, and how he’s up for the challenge of turning the program around with urgency.

“I met with the team this morning, it was an incredible first meeting,” Freeze said. “I think that we’re off to a good start, I look forward to getting with them individually, but I shared with them how we’re going to turn this ship and get out of the wilderness here that we might be in a little bit. Every job I’ve ever taken over has had some type of struggles prior to our arrival and we’ve been able to turn them fairly quick. And I look forward to that challenge here with this great staff that we’re going to put together and these young men that are going to buy in.”

Arkansas State was 4-8 before Freeze arrived as their head coach, going 10-2 in his one and only season at the helm. Ole Miss won two games and not a single conference game in 2011, winning seven games along with a bowl victory the following year in Freeze’s first season in 2012. Freeze has proven he can turn things around quickly, but he knows it all starts with buy from players along with leadership.

“But they have to buy in to chasing a standard and you have to get the standard and we’ve got to develop that for everybody, find the leaders in the locker room that are going to adhere to that standard and lead us and be the voice in the locker room,” Freeze said. “The same voice they hear in the team room or they hear from Cadillac, we need the same voices in the locker room and that’s when you start getting something going that’s going to be positive for change.”

Freeze elaborated on what a turnaround will take, listing his top core value of the highest importance in the process being faith.

“But there’s certain core values that I think we all have to believe in and buy into totally and the first one is faith, and I don’t mean faith in the spiritual sense like you believe like I believe. I don’t force that on anybody, it is who I am and I’m far from perfect but it’s who I am, but faith is the essence of you have to believe in something biggest than yourself to be a great football team, or to be a great university, or to be a great family,” Freeze said.

Freeze elaborated on how faith and a selfless attitude will be pivotal in the success of Auburn football, as he and his newly appointed associate head coach Cadillac Williams will look to steer the ship in the right direction for the program moving forward.

“It’s really not about you, you can’t run fast enough or you’re not strong enough to do it alone, so you have to have faith in someone bigger than yourself. The team, everyone around us, the staff, and we have to lay egos aside,” Freeze said. “That’s the one thing I’ve just really respected about Cadillac and our conversations, I think both of us have been though enough where we just really (know) it’s not about ego or pride, it’s about man how do we get this done together? And hopefully everyone will follow that lead and we need players to do the same, so faith.”