Auburn is closing in on Hugh Freeze as its next head coach, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel. After Lane Kiffin ignored the team’s advances, the reported decision to go with Freeze shows how far Auburn has fallen.
Freeze has baggage attached to him after he was fired from Ole Miss in July 2017 when it was discovered he used a college-administered cell phone to call an escort service.
The call came to light after Freeze attempted to engineer a smear campaign against former Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt, per Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel:
“Ole Miss orchestrated a misinformation campaign, by supplying media with off-the-record lies so they’d write and broadcast inaccurate stories that Ole Miss wasn’t going to receive major sanctions, in part, because most of the violations occurred under former coach, Houston Nutt. This was not true. Hugh Freeze knew it.”
He didn’t suffer many consequences, finding a new job in December 2018 as head coach at Liberty.
The Flames (8-3) have been good under Freeze, including a win over Arkansas (6-6, 3-5 in SEC) on Nov. 5. He is 34-14 at Liberty and 83-42 in 10 seasons as a college head coach. Despite the decent numbers, his teams have never finished higher than 10th in the AP poll.
The decision to pursue Freeze as the team’s next head coach is a slap in the face to current interim coach Cadillac Williams, the beloved former running back for Auburn and a member of the undefeated 2004 team.
He is 2-1 as Auburn’s head coach, recording one fewer win than ex-coach Bryan Harsin in five fewer games. His one loss came in overtime against Mississippi State (8-4, 4-4 in SEC), 39-33.
Williams played four seasons for the Tigers from 2001-2004, starting his final two years. He finished his career with 741 rushing attempts for 3,831 yards and 45 touchdowns. His career rushing total is second in Auburn history, behind Bo Jackson (4,303).
People were quick to criticize Auburn’s expected decision to hire Freeze.
Per ESPN, the team won’t formally offer a contract to Freeze until after the Iron Bowl, which opens the door for Williams to secure the job with a win against Alabama.
For a program that moved on from Harsin in part because he didn’t fit in at Auburn, the idea that it would balk at the chance to make a former Tigers star its next head coach doesn’t compute.
The team passing on Williams for a coach with a checkered background is even more insulting.
Programs will contort themselves in the most uncomfortable positions to find reasons to pass on Black coaches while giving opportunities to white coaches who have proven who they are.
It’s difficult to botch a high-profile coaching job as badly as Freeze did at Ole Miss, but that doesn’t appear to be a disqualifying mark on his resume. Power Five coaching jobs are a finite resource and there are a multitude of candidates — including one in-house — that haven’t been fired for using a burner phone to enlist the services of an escort service, among other institutional failings.
The team will likely win games with Freeze as head coach, but the team is looking to regain respectability off the field as much as it is on it with its next hire. In that regard, the reported decision to roll with Freeze is an abject failure. Auburn may soon find there is no rock bottom; only a further descent into irrelevance.
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