Hugh Freeze's comment about beating Arkansas '9 times' doesn't hold water

It’s hard losing. Dealing with the criticism, reliving every small detail, thinking if you would’ve done one thing differently maybe we would’ve won. Life for a major college football coach after a loss has to be torture. However, the one thing you can’t do and have success is living in denial afterward. Unfortunately for Auburn, that’s exactly where head coach Huge Freeze is.

Last night on the Auburn Sports Network, Freeze let his true feelings be known about the loss to Arkansas on Saturday. "I love Sam Pittman, and I hope he wins the rest of his game," said Freeze. "But I'm telling you that the hard truth is that we play them nine more times, we'd beat them nine more times. That's what's hard to take."

Let’s be real. Neither team wanted to win that game. Both screwed up. But only one has a massive problem with turnovers, and it isn’t the Hogs.

Here's the real 'hard truth'. The Tigers have coughed up the ball 14 times through four games, while Arkansas has six turnovers. So, Freeze needs to ask himself which team was really acting out of character.

Also, Auburn's game plan was obviously selling out to stop the run, making Taylen Green beat you with his arm, and it partly worked. Ja’Quinden Jackson averaged only 3.4 yards per carry, and Green threw a sub-40 percent completion percentage for the second straight week. On the other hand, Green rushed for 80 yards while the Hogs still put up 183 on the ground.

One more thing. While it's a stretch to think Freeze is insinuating the officials were a part of the problem, Tiger fans sure did. For hours after the game, Auburn fans took to X (formerly Twitter) to voice their frustrations about the refs.

Let me be clear: no one associated with Auburn shouldn’t dare bring up officiating when playing Arkansas. Firstly, Auburn-Arkansas games are notorious for poor officiating in favor of the Tigers (backward spike, the entire game in 2021), so don’t go there.

Secondly, the officiating was slightly tilted toward Arkansas Saturday (for the first time ever). However, the refs cost the Razorbacks a first down on two occasions. Once was after Auburn ran into Devon Bale, Arkansas’s punter, and they didn’t throw a flag. The other time was when Arkansas turned the ball over on downs after a disgustingly bad spot on fourth down. Taylen Green's third-down rush was well past the line to gain.

The fact is the better team won on Saturday, despite trying to hand it to Auburn. Arkansas threw two picks, went 2-4 on fourth down, missed a field goal, and had the worst passing performance of the season. Freeze telling himself stories to make him, his players, or Auburn's fans feel better about losing in that fashion won’t make the team better. As for Arkansas and its fans, we'll just take our above .500 record, head to Arlington next weekend, and forget about about Auburn for the rest of the season.