Will Auburn be among college football’s most improved teams?
AUBURN — Enter new head coach Hugh Freeze, 20 new transfers into the program, 19 players out, and the largest sell out of season tickets in the history of the Auburn athletic department, and the 2023 Auburn football season shouldn’t lack in excitement.
“All nine sets of my power rankings call for a winning season,” wrote Steele. “There is no weekly talk about when a coach will be fired as the team is fully behind both Hugh Freeze and Cadillac Williams and will play to their potential with 17 returning starters and some solid transfers.”
Auburn finished last season with a 5-7 overall record and 2-6 league record. That followed a 6-7 overall record and 3-5 league record in 2021. The Tigers haven’t won nine games since the 2019 season, and haven’t won 10 games since the 2017 season. In fact, Auburn has produced just two winning SEC records in the last five seasons.
The last time Auburn finished with a losing record was the 2012 season, when they finished 3-9 overall and 0-8 in league play. Gene Chizik was fired, Gus Malzahn was hired, leading to the Tigers completing one of the biggest one-year turnarounds in the history of college football. Auburn finished 12-2 overall, won the SEC championship, and fell just short of winning the national championship with a Rose Bowl loss to undefeated Florida State.
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Steele’s list looked like this:
1. Texas A&M
2. Oklahoma
3. Appalachian State
4. Miami
5. UTEP
6. Florida Atlantic
7. Louisiana
8. Miami (OH)
9. Northern Illinois
10. Auburn
11. Boston College
12. Baylor
13. Army
14. Navy
15. Nebraska
16. Georgia Southern
“I want our fans to be excited about the momentum we’ve created here,” Freeze said in the spring. “Do we have a ways to go? Yes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be excited about where we are currently. Somehow I’ve got to figure out a way that I want all of those things to occur, and that’s not easy.”
One of the ways Freeze and Co. have created excitement is in recruiting. Auburn is knocking on the door of a top-20 class as August approaches, and sits at No. 14 if you sort the team rankings by average rating per player. The Tigers’ class sits at 10 commitments at the time of publishing this article, which is the least amount of commits of any program in the top 42 in the current On3 Sports Consensus rankings.
That gives Auburn plenty of room to grow and reach the top 10 in the 2024 team rankings by signing day(s).
Auburn produces largest season ticket sell out in program history
Auburn announced Wednesday that it has sold out of public season tickets for the 2023 football season, with 63,500 sold.
“Here’s another example of the passion Auburn fans have for their team,” first-year head coach Hugh Freeze said. “We appreciate that overwhelming support and can’t wait to see everyone in person on September 2 at Jordan-Hare Stadium for Kickoff on The Plains.”
This figure does not include student season tickets, which are still being sold; the combined total will be announced when student sales conclude. Before the 2014 season, Auburn set a record with 62,900 season tickets sold. Since then, ticket allocations to visiting teams have changed, allowing for more seating availability.
“Our season ticket sellout is a tribute to the Auburn family and is indicative of their passion, excitement, and dedication – that is Auburn Being Auburn,” said director of athletics John Cohen. “Coach Freeze and his staff have done a tremendous job in a short time with spring practice and all phases of recruiting.”
In addition, the Georgia game on September 30 is already a sell out, and very limited quantity remain for the matchup against Alabama on November 25.
More on the Tigers’ season ticket sell out
How is that determined? To determine season ticket numbers, the football program takes full seating capacity and subtracts students and the largest visiting allotment in a given season. That number equals available season tickets. It’s important to note, there have been season ticket sell outs before for Auburn football. However, as noted above, the program is on track to sell the most tickets ever on the way to a hard sell out of season tickets. How is that so?
Students account for around 18,000 tickets. There are still student tickets remaining, by the way, as student season tickets are separate and still on sale, although the expectation is those will be sold out soon, too.Visiting team allotments have changed over the years. In the early 2000’s, even within the last decade, Georgia and Alabama were receiving 10-12,000 tickets for games inside Jordan-Hare Stadium. As college football has changed and fans across the country travel to road games less and less, those numbers have decreased to around 8,000 tickets. As the largest visiting team allotments have decreased, available season tickets inside Jordan-Hare Stadium have increased.Therefore, because of less tickets allotted to visitors, and fluctuation in student tickets at times, the number of season tickets available for the 2023 season is higher than ever before. And because the athletic department is going to sell those out, it will be the largest season ticket sell out in the history of the program. According to athletic department officials, the numbers suggested around 700 more season tickets would be sold than the previous all-time high. That number ended up being +600 over the previous all-time high in 2014.
What a difference a year makes: For reference, the athletic department sold around 7,000 less season tickets in 2022.
There’s obviously good reason for that. After a 6-7 record in 2021, Bryan Harsin was entering his second season after nearly getting fired during his first offseason. On the field, former starting quarterback and Auburn legacy Bo Nix transferred to Oregon. Optimism was low and apathy was high.
What they’re saying: Rhett Hobart, Deputy AD/External Affairs, obviously credits the coaching change and new energy attributed to Hugh Freeze, but also credits an “intentional” and “organized” campaign of grassroots efforts and digital marketing.
“It was clear very early on in the Tigers Unlimited renewal period that excitement was incredibly high for this upcoming season. Any time you see renewals coming it at the pace they were, and the number of new seats being added to those accounts, it gives you a lot of excitement for the opportunities ahead,” Hobart told Auburn Live.“Our collective team – marketing, fan experience, comm, ticketing, TUF, and many others – has worked tirelessly to capitalize on the excitement to sell as many tickets as possible. We all want to have incredible experiences this fall in Jordan-Hare,” he added.The “Auburn Being Auburn” digital campaign continues to lead to significant lead generation according to Hobart, along with nearly 10,000 mailers and door hangers passed out across the Auburn-Opelika area.“This effort continues now, and will then swap over to promoting a full sell out for “Kickoff on The Plains” as soon as season tickets are sold out,” Hobart concluded.
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