The 2024 Auburn football season is over and now the Tigers must expect a critical 2025 under soon-to-be third-year head coach Hugh Freeze.

After a disastrous finish in conference play, the Tigers finished 5-7 and did not advance to a bowl game.

The theme of this year’s Auburn season was self-inflicted wounds. Turnovers, costly penalties and special teams misfortunes were the main ingredients of the subpar product on display on the field most of the time Saturday.

“You’re optimistic about everything we’ve done, but how the hell do you really know that right now? We just have to work until the end,” Freeze said.

“And I know the lessons we learned this year can help, because sometimes life isn’t fair and it hits you hard, and we’ve had some experiences with that. We can say that it is humiliating, frustrating.

Here are our final grades for Auburn for the 2024 season:

Offense

Grade: C-

When the offense clicked for Auburn, it displayed some of the much-talked-about preseason hype. But the bitter moments were so bad that fans didn’t hesitate to vocally express their feelings by booing throughout Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The Tigers finished 28th overall in the country averaging 277.4 passing yards per game. Auburn averaged 165.5 rushing yards, led by Jarquez Hunter’s 1,201 rushing yards this season.

Auburn totaled nine offensive turnovers, eight of which were interceptions. Quarterback Payton Thorne finished with 2,713 passing yards and 21 touchdowns. However, his decision-making and ball security will be lasting images for the Auburn faithful.

After not reaching a milestone in 25 years at Auburn, Keandre Lambert-Smith finished with 981 receiving yards and eight touchdowns.

The race to a 1,000 yard WR season continues and could possibly be accomplished next season with the returns of Cam Coleman and Malcom Simmons.

Defense

Grade: B+

Defensive coordinator DJ Durkin and the entire Auburn defense should bow out for their performance in 2024. After finishing 43rd in total defense a year ago, the Tigers finished the season 31st.

Tied for 44th with 28 total sacks in the country, Auburn has recovered five fumbles, ranked top 20 in rushing defense and has picked off opponents eight times this season.

Led by Jerrin Thompson, Eugene Asante, Austin Keys and Dorian Mausi, we saw first-year defensemen emerge who played key roles throughout the year.

True freshmen Malik Blocton, Kaleb Harris, Jay Crawford and Demarcus Riddick shined defensively for the Tigers, showing more of what’s in store for this unit moving forward.

Special teams

Grade: D

This was the weakest group in Auburn football as the coaches culminated in his third place kicker in the last three games.

From the start of camp, special teams was going to be an issue for Auburn with the health issues surrounding kicker Alex McPherson. Putting freshman kicker Towns McGough there seemed like the best idea until he finished 5 of 12 on field goal attempts.

Ian Vachon finished the year for the Tigers at kicker. But with the graduation of senior punter Oscar Chapman, it will make for open competition this offseason at both kicker positions.

Training

Grade: C

It wasn’t the jump fans wanted to see in his sophomore year and now Hugh Freeze’s honeymoon is slowly fading on The Plains.

As the results reflect across the recruiting world, Auburn is poised to have top five recruiting classes in a row. Starting in the fall of 2025, fans expect these recruiting victories to translate onto the field.

For this to happen, Freeze will need to better train his group with discipline. Committing third-down penalties, abandoning defensive assignments on crucial downs and poor communication between players and coaches halted the Tigers’ success last season.

Removing it now will help rebuild next year’s group culture.

Overall

Grade: C

Auburn’s talent wasn’t elite, but it was enough to compete with any team they faced in its conference.

Considering everything Auburn could have done this year, the average would be an underestimate of their 2024 grade.

Knowing all the holes they need to fill for next season, last year could possibly be the last down season for Auburn in years to come.