The California Bears stripped Hugh Freeze of his mastermind status and lit ablaze his Club Guru membership card.

Freeze can’t hold guru distinction anymore after the Berkeley boys stole Auburn’s football and its lunch money in a 21-14 upset Saturday on the Plains. The Bears intercepted quarterback Payton Thorne four times.

Freeze invited a result like this with his offseason refusal to add a transfer quarterback.

His reasoning? Transfer quarterbacks cost too much.

Hey, Auburn, ask Miami if a transfer quarterback is worth investment

Sorry, but isn’t that the purpose of an NIL collective's fundraising? These collectives aren’t stock clubs raising money to purchase shares of Walmart. They’re buying players.

"I just couldn’t bring myself to” invest big bucks on a transfer quarterback, Freeze said in May while appearing on a Birmingham radio show.

That’s rich coming from Freeze. When he last coached in the SEC, his Ole Miss coaching staff trampled NCAA rules while Freeze’s program fostered “an unconstrained culture of booster involvement in football recruiting,” as the NCAA described it.

Now that boosters are permitted to bankroll rosters, Freeze cheaped out at the most important position.

Ask Miami if a top transfer quarterback is worth the investment.

Rather than “go spend a million dollars" on a transfer quarterback, as Freeze put it in May, he doubled down on Thorne, a veteran with a defined ceiling. Thorne became one of the SEC’s worst quarterbacks throughout Freeze’s debut season.

Auburn's loss to Cal Bears falls on Hugh Freeze, not Bryan Harsin

It’s true that Bryan Harsin, Freeze’s inept predecessor, didn’t leave his successor much to work with on offense, but no more blaming Harsin. Pin the Cal debacle on Freeze for his quarterback miscalculation.

While Miami landed star Cam Ward, Oregon snapped up Dillon Gabriel and Syracuse welcomed Kyle McCord, Freeze soldiered on with a sixth-year senior who has 38 career interceptions.

“A disappointing day,” he said after Auburn (1-1) dropped to 4-8 in its past dozen games.

A preventable day, too.

Freeze cycled through three quarterbacks in December during Auburn’s anemic 31-13 loss to Maryland in a bowl game. That proved the Tigers needed a better option. Freeze failed to act, and now the bill comes due.

Freeze, on Monday, applauded the play-calling against Cal.

“We had people running wide open,” he said.

And that would be great, if Freeze had secured a quarterback to spot open receivers in time and accurately deliver the ball.

He acknowledged before the season that he’s “not the greatest portal recruiter.” Too bad. Recruiting transfers is part of the job description.

To his credit, he made roster upgrades at other positions, but it’s tough to succeed at this level with an inconsistent quarterback who spots receivers too slowly and misses them too often.

Freeze recruits high schoolers well. He’s got Harsin whipped there. But recruiting isn’t enough. Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Texas, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Oklahoma also recruit well, and Ole Miss crushes the transfer portal.

Blue-chip reinforcements will help, but that still leaves him needing a quarterback.

Freeze earned his Club Guru membership more than a decade ago when he energized Ole Miss with an up-tempo offense and run-pass option plays. Yes, recruiting shenanigans helped, but he was a visionary, too. His RPOs had not yet become widespread throughout the SEC. Seeing Thorne languish in Freeze’s offense is like watching a stale rerun.

Freeze has lost 12 of his past 19 games dating to the end of his Liberty tenure. His two career wins against Nick Saban remain his pinnacle. Imagine headlining your résumé with achievements that occurred nearly a decade ago.

Saban continues to prop up Freeze.

"Hugh Freeze is going to do an outstanding job at Auburn,” Saban said on “College GameDay” before Cal’s victory. “I think they're going to be one of the most improved teams in the SEC."

Maybe the Tigers could have been, if Freeze had upgraded his quarterbacks.

He wouldn’t commit to a quarterback change this week against New Mexico, but he’s open to adjustment if the offense keeps misfiring. He should have engineered a change about eight months ago.

Any good-standing member of Club Guru could see Auburn required a transfer.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

Subscribe to read all of his columns. Also, check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, and newsletter, SEC Unfiltered.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Hugh Freeze gives up Club Guru card after Auburn football flops vs Cal