There’s no doubt that expectations are already high for Auburn‘s true freshman wide receiver Cam Coleman. The former five-star prospect that turned heads at the high school level and already on The Plains following an impressive showing during spring practices this year as an early enrollee.
Expectations are a sign of respect, but there is such a thing as them being too high. And at the Hoover Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast in Birmingham, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze was asked if he gets the sense that there are already too many expectations for the young Alabama native.
“Well social media does for certain, and I work very hard to try to make sure our kids, coaches, myself, everybody, that’s not the right place to get your identity from. It’s a lot of trash there,” Freeze laughed and said. “I mean there’s a lot of good things too, but man the people they can praise you one day and they just rip you to shreds the next. And it doesn’t even have to be true information and they can rip you and I want to be very careful with those young kids.”
Social media has definitely become a double-edged sword filled with positive and negative implications for student-athletes. But after Coleman made a handful of dazzling plays at Auburn’s A-Day spring game and ended the scrimmage with four catches for 92 yards and a touchdown, all the buzz around the freshman was that of excitement.
“After the spring game it was he’s incredible, and he was, and I think he will be. But at the same time, let’s just take it day by day and be careful with it,” Freeze said. “I do think realistic expectations breed frustration in people, and so I think we just need to slow down a little and let some development happen.”
Coleman will not be 18 years old until Auburn’s seventh game of the season against Missouri, with Freeze believing that his youth has helped him in dealing with any of the lofty expectations that may come ahead of the first college season of his career.
“He seems fine, Cam is just a happy-go-lucky young kid right now and probably doesn’t even know how talented he is,” Freeze said.
Freeze told a story about Coleman calling him prior to the Prayer Breakfast about his confusion with making the trip to Birmingham and meeting up with him. Showing his age and room to grow off the field as he’ll look to do the same on the field as well ahead of his highly anticipated freshman season.
“That’s the way he is and he’s just a young kid, and I love that about him because he has this innocence about him and he wants to learn, he wants to be coached. And hopefully, all those qualities remain,” Freeze concluded.
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