2025 SEC Media Days takeaways: Auburn not shying from expectations, Tennessee embracing QB battle

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Few coaches around the nation — let alone in the SEC — face as much pressure as Auburn’s Hugh Freeze entering the 2025 season. Freeze was brought in to revive a stagnant program by injecting it with new talent and bringing back its winning ways. 

Entering year three, he’s achieved half of those crucial objectives. Auburn has recruited well under Freeze, but those efforts haven’t materialized on the field yet. Freeze is just 11-14 with the Tigers, and his win total dropped from six in 2023 to five in 2024.

Freeze understands that that’s not the direction his team needs to be going, especially at a place like Auburn, which has been quick to pull the plug on lackluster coaching tenures in the past. He’s not shying from the immense expectations in Auburn; in fact, he’s setting the bar pretty high. 

SEC Media Days 2025 Fact or Fiction: Can Tennessee win big without Nico Iamaleava at QB?

Shehan Jeyarajah

“I truly believe that in the playoff run, we’re going to be in this discussion because I love this team,” Freeze said Tuesday during Day 2 of SEC Media Days in Atlanta. “We’ve got to stay healthy and we need the ball to bounce our way a couple times this year instead of against us I’m sure, but that’s our full expectation. We embrace the fact that Auburn should be in those talks year in and year out.” 

Freeze is supremely confident in his roster. His talent acquisition efforts certainly bear that out. Auburn signed the No. 10 class in the 247Sports Team Composite Recruiting Rankings in 2024 and welcomed the No. 8 class of incoming freshmen in the spring. 

Auburn’s staff has worked hard to flip Auburn’s skill talent, which included signing five-star receiver Cam Coleman and expected starting slot receiver Malcolm Simmons in 2024. Freeze was also quick to acclimate to the transfer portal era. 

During the 2025 cycle, the Tigers added Eric Singleton Jr. (Georgia Tech), the No. 1 wide receiver in 247Sports’ Transfer Rankings, Xavier Chaplin (Virginia Tech) the No. 2 offensive tackle, and quarterback Jackson Arnold, a former starter at Oklahoma and five-star prospect out of high school. 

“Heading into our third year, with respect to our great league, our roster is just better,” Freeze said. “We’re bigger. We’re faster. We’re stronger. Our culture is strong and our chemistry and carryover and coaching is here for a second consecutive year and most of our locker room is bought into the standard to which we think it will take for us to win football games.” 

All that’s left is to go out and do it. A good sign that Auburn is finally turning the corner would be a win against one of its top rivals. Since arriving on The Plains, Freeze is 0-4 against Alabama and Georgia. Two of those losses have come by one possession. 

“Our roster is one that can compete with those teams,” Freeze said. “We’ve been in the games, even the first two years, but we haven’t found a way to win. That’s one of the secrets, I think, to our success this year is having guys that we think we’ve brought in that have the combination of all of it. Not just skillset, but this guy’s a winner and has been proven to win and now will help us get over the edge in all these close games like those two will be.” 

Here’s a look at other highlights from the second day of SEC Media Days. 

Georgia young, but eager 

Normally, coaches are quick to highlight youth as a reason their team might struggle ahead of the season. But Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who’s used to boasting an experienced roster, is taking a different approach. 

He said that 54% of the players on his roster are entering either their first or second year with the Bulldogs. 

“You get youthful exuberance,” Smart said. “We’ve had practices that have been spirited. We had a great spring practice and we talked about the words fire, passion and energy. I think the biggest thing that separates college football teams today is complacency among players versus fire, passion and energy among players. We’ve tried to highlight those traits as much as possible with our players.”

Georgia will be breaking in a new starting quarterback in Gunner Stockton, though he’s preparing for his fourth year of college football. The Bulldogs’ inexperience really comes through along the lines of scrimmage. 

They lost three starting offensive linemen and three starting defensive linemen to the NFL Draft. That’s a big reason why Georgia ranks 96th in the FBS in returning production, according to ESPN’s SP+ metric. 

“I could sit up here last year and tell you how experienced we were,” Smart said. “We had all these guys coming back and they played a lot of football, but are they motivated and are they really wanting to be great? As opposed to somebody, when it’s new, there’s a lot more excitement. It’s their first time getting a chance to start. It’s their first time being a major player in the rotation. 

“There’s good and bad about both.” 

Tennessee embracing QB competition 

Tennessee took a major blow at the end of its spring practice slate when starting quarterback and former five-star prospect Nico Iamaleava transferred to UCLA after a name, image and likeness dispute with the Vols boiled over into the public eye. 

The Vols were quick to execute an effective quarterback trade with UCLA, as former Appalachian State standout Joey Aguilar moved to Knoxville after going through spring practice with the Bruins. Though Tennessee undoubtedly invested considerable resources into landing Aguilar, he’s not walking into a starting role. 

“We will have a competition at the quarterback position,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said. “Three guys inside of that room, really proud of what they’ve done: Joey (Aguilar) since he got there in May, (Jake) Merklinger and George MacIntyre, what those two guys have done since they’ve been on campus. But I’m really proud of the steps they’ve taken throughout the summer in developing relationships and rapport with the guys around them, their ability to compete in a positive way with each other in the meeting room and on the field, their ability to have leadership traits and to continue to grow in that.”

Second-year gunslinger Jake Merklinger is likely Aguilar’s biggest competition, given his familiarity with Heupel’s system and the fact that he played behind Iamaleava in two games last season. Merklinger also effectively received first-team reps in Tennessee’s “Orange & White” spring game after Iamaleava left. 

MacIntyre is a wiry true freshman that has added some much-needed weight to his impressive 6-foot-6 frame. He also comes from good stock, as he’s the nephew of former Colorado and FIU coach Mike MacIntyre and the grandson and namesake of former Vanderbilt coach George MacIntyre. 

“We’ve found a way to win with a lot of different quarterbacks throughout my career on the offensive side of the ball and we’re going to find a way to win with the guy that earns the starting spot as we go through training camp here in August.” Heupel said. 

Texas wants to ‘finish the mission’

Texas has been a mainstay on the national scene in recent years. The Longhorns also made it to the 2024 SEC Championship Game in their first year with the conference, and they’ve won a combined 25 games in the past two seasons under coach Steve Sarkisian. 

But Sarkisian has his eyes set on more. Texas, which at +500 is FanDuel Sportsbook’s betting favorite to win the national title, has yet to make it further than the semifinal round of the College Football Playoff, though it has come painfully close to the national title game in consecutive years. 

“We need to be present, we need to be present in the moment and enjoy the journey, and then ultimately finish the mission,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve been close. We’ve been there. We’ve been knocking on the door the last two years.”

Texas is attaching itself to the championship mindset. Sarkisian noted that two of the players he brought to SEC Media Days — quarterback Arch Manning and linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. — have known nothing but conference championship games and College Football Playoff appearances during their Longhorn careers. 

While the Longhorns bring back a lot of defensive talent immersed in that winning culture, they will be bringing an almost entirely new-look offense into 2025. Manning is leading the charge, as he steps in for a departing Quinn Ewers. 

Sophomore Ryan Wingo figures to set the tone in an overhauled wide receiver corps, while Manning will be taking snaps behind an offensive line with four new starters. California transfer Jack Endries will be filling in at tight end. 

“It’s going to take the resiliency, the confidence and the belief, and it’s going to take being at our best when our best is needed,” Sarkisian said. “That’s going to be late into December and into January if we want to accomplish some things that we think we’re capable of accomplishing.”

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