Auburn’s roster building and NIL strategies since the House Settlement was passed have been under a microscope this summer.

The Tigers’ 2026 recruiting class has plummeted in the national rankings since June, a drop highlighted by four players decommitting. Head coach Hugh Freeze and athletic director John Cohen both attributed the recent struggles to Auburn’s adjustment to the new revenue sharing era and the program’s strategy for preserving the current roster and staying under the cap.

Both Freeze and Cohen have emphasized that they don’t believe other schools are operating by the same rules as Auburn, something they think could change on Aug. 1, when offers can start going into writing.

Each athletic department operates under the rev-share cap of $20.5 million, but third-party NIL deals don’t count against the cap. The Deloitte NIL GO clearinghouse was introduced to vet NIL deals, in theory eliminating the large pay-for-play deals often handed out by booster collectives.

Those deals aren’t necessarily illegal now, but money that comes from the University or an affiliate — deals that aren’t third-party — would count against the cap. The clearinghouse is still in the early stages, but Freeze and Cohen gave some insight on how it has affected Auburn so far.

“Truthfully, we haven’t had that many in the football building yet that we’ve gotten the word back on,” Freeze said at an AMBUSH event in Atlanta on Monday.

With things still being in the early stages, Freeze avoided giving an extensive comment on Auburn’s deals through NIL GO, deferring to Cohen. However, he did use it as an example of why he thinks Auburn’s rev-share and NIL strategies are the right ones.

Freeze made the point that if players who have already been in college and proven themselves have had trouble getting deals approved or agreeing on a value through the clearinghouse, he doesn’t want to promise large numbers to high school recruits.

Cohen elaborated more on Auburn’s experience with NIL GO so far, saying that it’s “a little hit or miss right now.”

“You’re convinced that something that a businessperson in the business community put through is gonna go through and sail through, and it doesn’t,” Cohen said. “And then you’re convinced that something that something everybody else puts in probably isn’t going to go through, and it does. But I think we’re all going to go through this learning experience.”

Cohen said that if information from the SEC and Deloitte suggests that Auburn is taking the wrong approach, the program will adjust, emphasizing the time still left between now and the early signing period in December.

He was asked specifically if Auburn had the funding and support from its boosters to adjust and strike quickly if the landscape changes, to which Cohen said Auburn will “do what it takes.”

Despite Auburn’s low position in the recruiting rankings, Cohen is still confident in how the 2026 class will finish, praising Freeze’s ability as a recruiter.

“You can’t confuse patience with inactivity. This man, who was just sitting right here, is as active a recruiter as any coach I’ve ever seen in any sport,” Cohen said. “I just spent two hours in a car with him, and he was called by seven different recruits. They called him. That’s the kind of relationship he has with recruits…

“There are staffs out there in which the head coach really isn’t part of that process, that there’s a separate group. Not Hugh Freeze, he’s personally in the middle of it, and it takes a lot of time, but no matter what he’s doing at that moment, he stops everything in his life to talk to those recruits and to talk to their families.”

Time will ultimately tell whether or not Auburn’s approach will work, but for now, neither Cohen or Freeze is backing away from their strategy yet.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at prauterkus@al.com

For many, no matter how many prodigies hockey secures Penn State will be first and foremost a football school. That in itself is pressure packed.

For some zealots, football has always been in the national championship picture, but that isn’t true.

Following Penn State’s last national championship in 1986, under Joe Paterno, only in 1994 did Penn State ever truly flirt with national championship aspirations. After the 1994 season, only twice in Paterno’s final 17 seasons (1999, 2008) did Penn State ever reach 9-0, and it never hit 10-0. 

Under Paterno’s watch in Penn State’s first 19  Big Ten seasons, the program appeared in three New Year’s Six bowls – during the same stretch  Penn State tumbled from being a true national power and slipping behind traditional powers like Michigan and Ohio State as well as Wisconsin, Michigan State and Iowa began to leap front Penn State. 

Many of these zealots somehow transpose Paterno’s first 21 seasons— which is the reason Paterno is a coaching immortal— where Penn State had six undefeated regular seasons, played for four national championships, winning two and winning 10 of 14 New Year’s Six bowls.

Photo by Matt Lynch, Nittany Sports Now: James Franklin

Part of that “Mandela Effect” has carried over to the James Franklin era and has added fuel to the fire of often deserved criticisms towards Franklin of not winning the big games.

Following Penn State’s heartbreaking loss in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Orange Bowl to Notre Dame, Franklin’s record against AP Top 10 teams dropped to 4-20.

In perspective, Paterno was 3-12 in his final 15 games against AP Top 10 teams, so he wasn’t getting the job done either. 

When a Penn State fan identifies their sport allegiance, the odds are football will be the sport over hockey, and in many Penn State fans minds of a certain age, Penn State is still the reigning perennial national power it was in the late 1970’s up until the mid 1980’s. 

This is the absolute closest Penn State has been to that mid-1980’s level.

This is no disrespect to the legendary 1994 team, who finished No. 2 that season and was recognized by ESPN in their celebration of the 150 years of college football as the highest ranked team to not win a national championship. But they were preseason No. 9 going into 1994.

There have been three Penn State teams that have started in the Top 5 since: 1995 at No. 4, 1999 at No. 3 along with 1997 squad being preseason No. 1. This should be the highest preseason rank for Penn State since these teams.

This is another log onto the fire.

When you consider the bevy of talent that has returned such as quarterback Drew Allar, who could have been selected in the Top 10 of this past Draft, running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, offensive lineman Vega Ioane, defensive lineman Dani Dennis-Sutton and Zane Durant, as well as defensive backs Zakee Wheatley and AJ Harris, that is a national championship nucleus. 

Another log was added when Penn State made defensive coordinator Jim Knowles the highest paid assistant coach in college football history at north of $3 million per season.

‘You Don’t Mess Around With Jim’: Penn State Set to Hire Jim Knowles as Defensive Coordinator

When you consider how aggressive Penn State was in the transfer portal retooling their wide receiver room and adding depth at key positions like offensive line and linebacker it shows the sense of urgency to get this done. 

I feel the vision Franklin has wanted and conveyed to Penn State’s administration was tasted in the waning moments of the Orange Bowl. Everyone at Penn State felt they should have been able to drive to get points to move on to play for a national championship. 

To be so close and be denied in such fashion gave Franklin more leverage than he has ever had at Penn State. 

The aggressiveness of hockey cannot be overlooked, but Penn State’s proverbial “bread” will always be buttered by the success of what happens in Beaver Stadium. The wrestling program has a John Wooden-esque dynasty amongst us winning 12 of the last 14 national championships that was competed for, hasn’t lost a dual meet since 2020, and  that dominance hasn’t even made a dent into the engine that is Penn State football. 

If Penn State were to come up short this year, going “all-in” with significant investment to build the most complete rosters in the country, assemble thebest coaching staff in the nation of being able to retain Andy Kotelnicki another year and bringing in Knowles, a very favorable schedule that has Penn State the first five weeks in State College before hitting the road, that will leave many wondering what it would take to get it done.

Everyone got a taste of Franklin’s vision back in January being only moments away from getting to the national championship last season.

The immense pressure to satisfy that hunger is now on Franklin and his team is to deliver a return trip to Miami for the National Championship. Hockey may have gotten a hockey prodigy, but the significant investment to deliver a football national championship dwarves anything that happens at Pegula Ice Arena.