God knows, if Auburn Tigers After coughing up another loss to the Kentucky Wildcats this weekend, the ceiling would almost certainly have fallen on head coach Hugh Freeze.

Still waiting for Freeze to make a mistake, ESPN’s designated agitator Paul Finebaum, and although his inevitable attack would have been one for the ages, the Tigers 24-10 over Kentucky defused his media time bomb.

“It felt like that win (against Kentucky) saved the season, because losing to a really struggling Kentucky team would have ended everything,” Finebaum said during an appearance on McElroy and Cubelic in the morning. “Right now you can look at the schedule and find wins if you want, you can be pessimistic if you want, but there’s nothing like ending a losing streak and to end what seemed like a feeling of hopelessness. And I think that’s really important.”

As it happened, Freeze showed just how tough he is by recovering from severe food poisoning in time to earn the Tigers their first much-deserved SEC victory this season.

Breathing some life back into the Tigers’ season was absolutely essential to Freeze’s long-term survival as head coach of the ambitious program.

So on Monday, Finebaum, with his tongue slightly in cheek, took the opportunity to give Freeze and Co. their flowers for facing adversity and righting the Auburn ship before their arrival. clash with the Vanderbilt Commodores on Saturday.

“Everyone is aware of what Kentucky did, and that’s not really the point,” Finebaum insisted. “The fact that you can go on the road and look like a real football team and not give away games is significant.”

According to Finebaum, that’s something Auburn hadn’t been able to accomplish in the previous three SEC games. The Tigers had every chance of winning at some point during the competitions.

“Now you can say we did this, we did that, we almost did that, and if the turnovers stop, then maybe the season can still have some momentum. And that’s really what you’re talking about,” Finebaum concluded.

Fighting Finebaum has become a weekly game of cat and mouse for Freeze, but it has largely been a one-sided lost cause for the struggling trainer, especially during what has been an eventful campaign thus far . Finebaum doesn’t need a reason to be critical of Auburn, he’s been doing it for over 30 years, but Freeze has made things look easy at times this season.

So it’s a welcome relief that Finebaum is willing to give Freeze some breathing room, at least in the short term. Drawing a line in the sand against Kentucky, Finebaum believes the veteran head coach can engineer a renaissance of sorts on the Plains.

In truth, even the most ardent Tigers fans will need a lot more than a win against the decidedly average-looking Wildcats team to get too excited about what Freeze can ultimately accomplish for the remainder of this season . Most just hope Freeze May Shut Down Impressive Group of New Recruits in December and retain young stars like Keldric Faulk, Cam Coleman and Malcolm Simmons, among others.

Closing out Alabama and Texas A&M in November will present major obstacles for the Tigers to stack up enough wins to facilitate a conciliatory bowl appearance – that’s just the brutal reality to digest.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, and Freeze will work diligently to make sure it doesn’t turn into a freight train.