AUBURN — The Auburn football program in 2025 is not merely stumbling. It’s face-planting in full spectacle, surrounded by bleachers of blind boosters, an athletic director with his hands tied in denial, and fans so consumed with officiating conspiracies that they’ve forgotten what a winning season looks like.
At 3–3 overall and a humiliating 0–3 in the unified conference, Auburn isn’t just losing games — it’s losing identity, moral authority and the right to cry foul. With an athletic director who clings to denial like a security blanket, a head coach who runs hot gas when the pressure’s on, players bailing, and fans who specialize in conspiracies, Auburn is embarrassing itself every week.
A Cult of Complaints, Not Commitment
It’s wild how a university can market suffering as branding. Auburn spends more effort complaining about referees than building a team that wins without needing favorable calls. Every time they lose — especially to Georgia and Alabama — the boosters and delusional fans trot out the same “they cost us the game” angle, as if officials are their real nemesis. Meanwhile, the Tigers’ offense can’t hold leads, the defense throws fits when tested, and the entire program posture is grounded in envy of UGA and Bama. That’s not confidence. That’s inferiority complex on parade on the Plains.
They’ve made Georgia and Alabama into Super Bowls — weeks that define their season, weeks that make or break their soul — even though all teams face those opponents. Auburn’s obsession with being the little brother, always scrambling to catch up, becomes its greatest weakness. You can’t build your identity around two other programs. You become a dependent, not a champion.
John Cohen’s “Car That Won’t Start” Gambit
Athletic Director John Cohen, bless his heart, thinks he’s some kind of statesman. After the loss to Georgia, Cohen compared Hugh Freeze to a car that “doesn’t always start.” That’s not leadership — that’s spin. He says it’s “not my expectation at this point” to fire Freeze, yet simultaneously leaves the door cracked with “never say never.” That’s the posture of a man unwilling to take ownership, mirroring every institutional dysfunction on display.
Then there was Cohen’s halftime outburst against SEC officials during the UGA game: he publicly berated refs, made demands, threw his vest. If you’re going to run a football program, don’t pick a fight with your referees in front of your spectators — that’s amateur hour. It’s as if Cohen wants to be the loudest martyr instead of the composed administrator. He’s more referee’s enemy than program’s guardian.
Call it what it is: A total circus act on the Plains.
Freeze and the Broken Promises
Hugh Freeze is now in Year 3, supervising a breakdown of his own design. The offense sputters, leads vanish, and big-game paranoia rules. Jackson Arnold leads the team with 983 passing yards in six games — a number that sounds like a middle school QB, not the centerpiece of a Power Five offense. (Yes, those are real stats.) Their defense leaks when pushed. The game scripts are stale. Freeze isn’t scheming around opponents — he’s scripting around his own doubt.
You can’t build a “family environment” when players leave because you denied them redshirts, or because they no longer trust your vision. Running back Damari Alston left the team over being denied a redshirt, and a former Auburn captain publicly backed him. That’s a rupture, not a fracture. If I call you a family and your siblings walk away publicly, maybe reconsider the definition of “family” you’re selling.
Freeze’s dual hires — Freeze and DJ Durkin simultaneously — signal recklessness, not out-of-the-box thinking. It’s hubris masquerading as innovation. You don’t double your risk and pray it balances out.
Players, Departures & Mascots That Mask Weakness
Let’s talk roster: Cam Coleman leads receiving with just 305 yards. Jeremiah Cobb leads rushing with 453 yards. Those numbers are not stingy. They are shameful for a program that boasts facilities, resources and recruiting pull. When Auburn sells Yeti cups labeled “Cammy Cam Juice” — turning Cam Newton nostalgia into merch — that’s the equivalent of a circus begging applause while the main act flops. You know your present doesn’t land when your past is the only exhibit.
And why is Auburn erecting statues of Aubie, their mascot, treating him like a mythical savior? Because you need a hero when your real ones vanish. Statues don’t win games. They distract from the emptiness behind the scenes. Meanwhile, the Final Four banner outside their basketball arena looms like a shrine, up even in football season. That’s marketing delusion: pretending your program is great because of last year’s basketball success, as if that retroactively confirms this season’s legitimacy.
Even Florida, who actually won the natty, doesn’t erect banners the size of a football field to pompously boast about it.
Look at me! Look at me! I want attention too, Alabama! Hey Georgia, look at me, I can sit at the big boy table, too!
Only you can’t, Auburn. Sorry guys!
They still show vintage Nick Fairley highlight reels, like that’s the marquee moment they can relive. As a fellow Georgia fan in Jordan-Hare Stadium mentioned to me on Saturday.
“Nick Fairley is a fatass and a bust in the NFL!”
Yea, pretty much dude.
You’re rehashing a punch from 15 years ago while your program stands naked in the 2020s. That’s pathetic.
Booster Echo Chambers & Fan Entitlement
Auburn’s boosters act like a megachurch congregation: give, believe, and demand miracles. But when miracles don’t come? The first sermon is about officiating. The second is about conspiracy. The third is about purge. These fans come with entitlement baked in: they think showing up to Jordan-Hare means winning. They demand wins — but don’t acquaint themselves with accountability.
Booster pressure fuels this culture of complaint. They float rumors (that Harsin “had an affair” — a claim quietly whispered), they pressure coaching firings, they hoard resentment. They turn into zealots about the refs and forget that games are won or lost by execution, not flags. They pretend their loyalty is moral high ground, but their fingers flip the scoreboard toward blame the moment a drive stalls.
Little Brother Syndrome on Steroids
Make no mistake: Auburn lives in Georgia’s and Alabama’s shadows. The insecurities show in practice, in press releases, in social media wars, in halftime rants. You don’t build a football legacy by obsessing over the neighborhood’s bigger houses. Yet Auburn behaves like a tenant complaining about neighbors’ noise, never building their own walls.
Until Auburn stops measuring itself by UGA’s recruiting prowess and Bama’s ring- chasing heroics, it will never be itself. It will always be reaction, never action; eyeing a movement, never making one.
You simply aren’t going to beat Bama and Georgia at their own game. Maybe focus on getting a winning season or two and some actual momentum before trying to chase ghosts that are long gone.
Auburn is like the overconfident guy in your gym class who can barely lift the bar off the stack and obnoxiously brags about catching the eyes of the cheer captain at the Friday night football game.
Yea sure man, whatever.
A Flicker of Hope — For Now
Let’s finish with a grain of honesty: Auburn is not dead. Its resources, facilities, fan base and tradition are real. The bones of a top-20 program remain. But those bones are rotting if they never get rid of the infection in the brain.
If the Tigers want to reclaim dignity, they must stop playing victim. Ditch the mascots, dig into accountability, refuse to let every setback become a referee’s fault. Fire the “car that doesn’t always start,” or at least rebuild the engine. Focus on the players who stayed, build their trust — stop monetizing ghosts and whining about flags.
Fixing a cult takes self-reflection. Auburn must look in the mirror and admit: They’ve become what they mocked — a program addicted to outrage, defined by others, built by mythology instead of muscle. Let that culture burn. Rebuild. Start earning respect again. Until then, they’ll remain that weird little brother who yells about unfairness while everyone else wins.
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