Hugh Freeze couldn’t hide the relief on his face.

The conversation surrounding him and Auburn was finally about football. Winning football.

Auburn beat Baylor 38-24 to open the season on Friday. For now, it puts some of the negative talk about Auburn on pause. Whether it’s recruiting, arrests, past performances or the head coach golfing, the Tigers have had a handful of negative reasons to be in the news.

All of those issues made room for valid criticism of the program, and the only way to quiet that criticism was to win.

As Freeze sat down in the visiting team’s interview room, he knew his team had done just that. The Tigers were 1-0 and had picked up just their fifth road win since he became Auburn’s head coach.

“I thought it was a solid, solid effort,” Freeze said, “just thankful

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