As John Mitchell wrote earlier, the Alabama Crimson Tide recruiting machine is "on fire", while Auburn is "wandering in the wilderness." Auburn is also making excuses for recruiting results that can best be described as 'floundering'.
According to Hugh Freeze and Auburn Athletic Director John Cohen, Auburn is playing by the rules while other programs are not. If seeing that claim caused you to drop your phone or spill coffee on your laptop, it is understandable. Other programs agree with Auburn that the 'House Era' has not ended cheating, but when a serial cheater like Auburn claims to be squeaky clean, alarm bells clang.
There is more to the story. As reported by Athlon, On3's Justin Hokanson stated that "Auburn is really low on NIL funds compared to other programs." That situation might be explained as 'not guilty' by default. Does anyone outside of Auburn fans believe that Auburn, if it had the cash, would not be throwing dollars at prospects?
As reported by Hokanson, Hugh Freeze stated, "You want to make sure you are operating with what the House settlement says. We're going by what we believe is the accurate interpretation of it. It's not really to our advantage right now." Freeze carefully added that others are not operating in the same way as Auburn.
Is Freeze accusing the Alabama Crimson Tide of cheating?
Given that Auburn is now last among SEC teams in verbal commits for the 2026 class, does that mean that the 'others' include 15 SEC football teams? The SEC's top five are Georgia, Texas A&M, Alabama, LSU, and Tennessee. Is Freeze accusing all of them of cheating? A good guess is that Auburn's flailing head coach is at least accusing Georgia and Alabama. The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Bulldogs have been causing Freeze and the Aubies the most recent pain. If Freeze is not directly accusing Kirby Smart and Kalen DeBoer of cheating, there is little doubt that he wants to.
It appears that Auburn's latest grand strategy will be flipping top recruits. Since Auburn cannot sell NFL development and is short on funds, significant success via flipping is unlikely. Auburn is currently No. 89 among FBS in recruiting for the 2026 class. The Tigers will finish higher than that. The finish will have to be much higher, or Hugh Freeze will have to keep making excuses.