The Auburn Tigers have an absolutely massive showdown this weekend at Jordan-Hare Stadium in a game that should be looked at as a wonderful opportunity going up against the Georgia Bulldogs at home under the lights.

Coming off a bye, there’s been a little bit of a press of the reset button for the program, especially after the two bitterly disappointing road losses to Oklahoma and Texas A&M in which the coaching staff — and more specifically Hugh Freeze — took the brunt of the blame.

While questionable officiating can be pointed to from the Oklahoma game, questionable coaching was largely the reason for failure against the Aggies as well as a complete overall offensive ineptitude from a head coach who is supposed to be known as an offensive guru.

For as great as Freeze is at talent acquisition, though, the results on the field have simply not been there, and despite it still being early, it does not look a whole lot different so far this year even with his best roster yet.

Of course, should he be able to lead the Tigers to a win over Georgia for the first time since 2017, things would start to change in terms of the temperature of his seat. At the same time though, with this game being extremely gettable based on the struggles of the Bulldogs plus the struggles of Auburn, Freeze is dangerously close here to must-win territory.

It’s not to say he’s going to be fired if the Tigers lose again, but if the offense still looks horrible coming off a bye and Auburn takes a third consecutive defeat, people are absolutely going to be having that conversation.

And why shouldn’t they be?

Freeze’s record against SEC opponents is abysmal, and against ranked teams it’s even worse. Three years in, the Tigers are still looking for that signature win for Freeze and this staff.

It’s not win or else territory, however it is certainly starting to trend in that direction.

Freeze can stop every bit of that noise with a win on Saturday night. Time will tell if that is even a remotely viable possibility.