Hugh Freeze will become Auburn’s next head football coach

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Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze, center, gets ready to take the field with his team to play Arkansas in an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022, in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Michael Woods)

Auburn University announced on Monday that Liberty Coach Hugh Freeze would be Auburn’s next head football coach.

“After a thoughtful, thorough, and well-vetted search, we ended where we started, with Hugh Freeze,” Auburn Athletics Director John Cohen said in a statement. “Of all the candidates we considered, Hugh was the best fit. Fit has several meanings, but the most important factors were student-athlete development, football strategy, recruiting, and SEC experience.”

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum is reporting that the job was offered to Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin on Friday, but he turned down the job, electing to accept a $9 million-dollar-a-year contract extension with the Rebels instead. Freeze and Kiffin had been the only two coaches seriously considered by Auburn officials in the search that most people believe began even before Coach Bryan Harsin was fired midseason.

Freeze spent the last four years coaching at Liberty after he was fired at Ole Miss, where he was the coach from 2012 to 2016. Freeze is a known commodity within the Southeastern Conference coaching community.

Many Auburn fans had wanted interim Coach Carnell “Cadillac” Williams to get the job, but it appears that decision-makers at Auburn never seriously considered Cadillac for the opening. Williams, the only Black head football Coach in Auburn history, is a former Auburn and NFL player. Williams had been the running backs coach under Harsin. He finished 2 and 2 as the interim coach.

“First, I want to acknowledge Cadillac Williams for the incredible job he did as interim head coach,” Freeze said in a statement. “The impact he made is immeasurable and cannot be overstated. Secondly, Auburn is one of the preeminent programs in college football, and I’m very appreciative of President [Chris] Roberts and John Cohen for this opportunity at Auburn. I’ve been fortunate to witness first-hand how special Auburn is during my time as a head coach in the SEC and while visiting my daughter Jordan who attended Auburn and currently lives in the community. I can’t wait to work with our student-athletes and the Auburn family to bring championships back to the Plains.”

Freeze inherits a roster decimated by the transfer portal and two successive poor recruiting classes. Retaining Auburn’s commitments and finishing out this recruiting class will be the first challenge. As Harsin brought many assistants with him from Boise State, Freeze will need to build a staff quickly to get them out on the road recruiting in anticipation of the early signing period.

Auburn finished 5 and 7 in 2022 and is not bowl-eligible unless there are not enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all of the 84 bowl berths.

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