Robert Aderholt defends Auburn University after Freedom From Religion Foundation blasts school for promoting Christianity
Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-AL04) came to the defense of Auburn University after it was attacked by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) for their coaches’ participation in a recent prayer event. The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter warning Auburn University that “Auburn University must put a stop to religion in its athletic programs, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is insisting, after multiple coaches promoted a religious worship event where head football coach Hugh Freeze baptized a player.” “The Freedom From Religion Foundation should remember that the U.S. Constitution protects religious expression for everyone, regardless of who their employer might be,” Aderholt said on Twitter. “This event should be praised, not criticized.” The Wisconsin-based group claimed that it has “received numerous reports that Freeze, basketball coach Bruce Pearl and baseball coach Butch Thompson were involved in promoting a religious worship service to students on September 12 called “Unite Auburn.” A video promoting the event featured Thompson saying that Unite Auburn would allow students to “come together and lift the name of Jesus.” Unite Auburn “was dedicated to worship and giving messages to Auburn students seeking to grow their faith in God or who were curious about Christianity. The event’s goal was to unite the Christian community of Auburn under one roof to worship God.” The FFRF stated, “University-sponsored religious activities violate the U.S. Constitution.” Chris Line is a staff attorney for FFRF. Line wrote to Auburn University President Chris Roberts. “Auburn University is a public university, not a religious one,” Line wrote to Dr. Roberts. “It is inappropriate and unconstitutional for university employees to use their university position to organize, promote, or participate in a religious worship event. These ongoing and repeated constitutional violations at the university create a coercive environment that excludes those students who don’t subscribe to the Christian views being pushed onto players by their coaches.” The FFRF also chastised U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) for his holds on military promotions over his opposition to the Biden Administration’s use of taxpayer dollars to facilitate abortions in the military. FFRF has gone after Auburn before, most notably in 2015, when they accused Auburn and then Coach Tuberville of being “overly prayerful” and “for establishing many unconstitutional religious practices in Auburn team sports.” Specifically, FFRF cites Auburn for allowing coaches to hire team chaplains. FFRF insists that Auburn Coaches “may not lead or encourage any religious activities in their capacity as coaches and cannot participate in any student-led religious activities.” Annie Laurie Gaylor is the Co-President of FFRF. “The abuse of power displayed by these coaches shows that Auburn hasn’t changed one bit since we published our 2015 report,” said Co-President Gaylor. “As coaches, their responsibility lies in guidance on the field, not guiding these students to pews. They should start by firing the team chaplains, whose very presence signals that Auburn University has an inappropriate relationship with Christian evangelists.” The event that upset FFRF was a prayer rally that the three coaches and thousands of others attended. A number of students were baptized at the event, drawing some headlines and the ire of the FFRF. The event was not part of any sporting event and was outside the coach’s official Auburn duties. Tuscaloosa Attorney Luisa Reyes told Alabama Today, “The Freedom From Religion Foundation has it wrong. The Constitution prevents the government from establishing a religion, but it also protects the free exercise of religion, which is what the Auburn coaches were doing at this event. Their position as coaches does not mean they lose their free speech rights or right to practice their faith.” Rep. Aderholt’s wife, Caroline McDonald Aderholt, serves on the Auburn Board of Trustees. To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
College football season returns on Saturday
College football season begins anew this weekend. Over two hundred thousand Alabamians will be traveling on the roads this weekend to watch their favorite college teams play and to tailgate with their friends and families before and after the games. Head football coach Nick Saban returns to the University of Alabama for yet another season, and the Tide is once again ranked high in the college football rankings. Bama had a respectable 11 and 2 finish in 2022 but were left out of the college football playoffs. The Tide watched the playoffs on TV last year as the Georgia Bulldogs repeated as national champions. Saban returns, but the Tide has a new offensive and defensive coordinator. Saban is also looking for a quarterback. Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young is now the starting quarterback for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. Saban has not named a starter at the position, with four quarterbacks competing for playing time. Jalen Milroe, Ty Simpson, Tyler Buchner, and freshman Dylan Lonergan have all flashed at points in camp, but according to Saban, none of them have played so well that they have made him give them the job. Most observers seem to think that last year’s backup – Milroe, will be the starter, but for how long? Buchner has more experience, and he worked with the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame last year, before transferring to Tuscaloosa. Simpson and Lonergan both appear to have a high ceiling with more raw talent but would be riskier choices. The Tide’s season kicks off in Tuscaloosa on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Saturday night when the Middle Tennessee State University Blue Raiders visit. Hugh Freeze is the new head coach of the Auburn Tigers. Auburn finished a disappointing 5 and 7 last year with Brian Harsin being released as head coach in the middle of just his second season on the plains. Auburn was decimated in the two years after Coach Gus Malzahn was fired, with dozens of players leaving the program through the transfer portal and Harsin’s recruiting classes being less impressive than what the Tigers’ fans were used to. Freeze went heavy into the transfer portal to quickly replenish Auburn’s depth chart with upperclassmen transfers from other programs. Freeze has named Payton Thorne as the starting quarterback, with Thorne having beat out Robby Ashford in fall camp. Auburn’s season kicks off in Auburn on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. with the University of Massachusetts coming to visit. Trent Dilfer is the new head coach at the UAB Blazers. Dilfer won his first game with the Blazers on Thursday night with a 35 to 6 win over North Carolina A&T. UAB quarterback Jacob Zeno was nearly perfect, completing 34 of his 37 pass attempts for 247 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. 13 different Blazers caught passes, and 9 Blazers has running carries for 177 yards on the ground. The Blazers defense held NCAT to just 16 yards through the air and 157 yards on the ground. Troy University also starts their season at home on Saturday with Stephen F. Austin at 6:00 p.m. Jon Sumrall returns as the Trojans head coach. With 12 wins last year, Troy had the most wins in its history since moving up in division. Gunnar Watson is the starting quarterback. To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Auburn officially introduces Hugh Freeze as head coach
A day after announcing that Auburn University has hired Liberty Coach Hugh Freeze to be the 31st head football coach in the history of the program, the University held a formal press conference in Auburn to officially introduce Coach Freeze to the program’s alumnae and supporters. During the press conference, Freeze announced that he had hired interim Auburn head football Coach Carnell “Cadillac” Williams as associate head coach and that Cadillac would be staying with the program. “To me, it was a direct reflection of Cadillac and his leadership and how he led the staff and those staff,” Freeze said, praising Williams for his performance as interim coach. “I knew I had to have Cadillac on my side to help me drive the culture of Auburn football.” “It has always been my desire to remain at Auburn,” Williams said in a statement. “Last night, I was able to meet with Coach Freeze where shared his core values and vision for the football program and young men he will be coaching. He is a man of faith, and we share many of the same values when it comes to coaching. I am excited about his vision and plan for getting Auburn back to its winning ways, including winning championships!” “Coach Freeze asked me to stay on and join his staff as Associate Head Coach,” Williams said. “I accepted the position and am excited about working with him and learning from him. I ask that the Auburn Family join me in supporting Coach Freeze and getting Auburn football back on the winning track!” Auburn originally offered this job to current Ole Miss head football Coach Lane Kiffin. Kiffin turned the job down, opting to stay at Ole Miss, where he reportedly signed a $9 million extension on Tuesday. Many in the fan base had wanted the University to hire Williams as head coach. When Kiffin did not take the position, it went to Freeze. Reportedly Kiffin and Freeze were the only people considered for the job by new Auburn Athletics Director John Cohen, a former coach and athletics director who previously worked at Mississippi State. The hiring of Freeze has been met with skepticism by many and outright hostility by some. The Alabama Media Group’s Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist John Archibald wrote, “The university, after all, ignored a few things to hire him as football coach today. It overlooked his NCAA issues and the “pattern of personal misconduct” found by his old employer, Ole Miss. It overlooked 12 calls he made to escort services on Ole Miss phones and the claims of three women who say he acted inappropriately as a high school coach. It overlooked the way he reportedly reached out unsolicited to a sexual assault survivor to defend his own bosses at Liberty University.” Joseph Acosta wrote, “They can say that he’s a known winner and that this is a “win at all costs” move, which quite frankly is bullshit. He has a below .500 record in SEC competition at .475, including the wins that were vacated. For comparison, HOUSTON NUTT has a .491 record in SEC competition. Gus Malzahn, who Auburn fired in 2020 and is paying $21.5 million, has won more games in his career than Hugh Freeze.” Hugh Freeze had initial success as head coach at Ole Miss, including one ten-win season, but ultimately most of his wins at the school had to be vacated after the NCAA found that the football program under Freeze had committed a number of recruiting violations. Ole Miss then fired Freeze after the school learned that he had made a dozen phone calls to a Florida escort service on his University paid for phone. Freeze denied a media report that Auburn has required that he turn over control of his social media accounts to the University. Many Auburn fans, particularly on social media boards, have expressed skepticism about Freeze’s integrity. “Integrity is not always getting it right, or none of us would have it,” Freeze said. “It’s really when you don’t get it right what do you do, and you look at the end of the day of the film of your game, the film of your practice, the film of your life, the film of your decisions, and they don’t lie. And you have to own that at the end of the day, and guess what? Sometimes there are consequences when you don’t get it exactly right. We fumbled the ball eight times. You probably are not going to win. There is a consequence to that. You made a really poor decision. There may be a consequence to that, and that is Ok. It’s not great, and there may be consequences. You must accept those consequences, make the necessary changes, and get up the next day and play the next play.” “I see this as one of the top ten football programs in America, and I believe that,” Freeze told reporters. “We need you,” Freeze continued. “We need the fans. We need the Auburn family. We need the staff. We need the players. We need everyone in this building that is involved in our program to buy in to our core values to drive this train to get it where everyone wants to be. It is all of us that must pull together – the Auburn family.” A repentant Freeze asked that the Auburn family just give him a chance. “I don’t know anybody in this room who does not deserve a second chance,” Freeze explained. “I think everybody deserves a second chance, and I think we have fought to earn people’s trust back…Please give me a chance to earn your trust.” Auburn has reportedly hired a public relations firm to handle the blowback from this controversial hiring. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Hugh Freeze will become Auburn’s next head football coach
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. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Alabama, SEC trying to climb back to college football summit
Alabama and the Southeastern Conference are trying to climb back atop the college football mountain. The SEC was toppled— at least temporarily — from that summit by the Atlantic Coast Conference last season. A powerhouse Crimson Tide team has a much shorter climb back after a down-to-the-last-breath loss to the ACC’s Clemson in the national championship game . ‘Bama has won 17 consecutive SEC games by an average of 21 points but coach Nick Saban insists “there’s a lot of parity in our league.” Despite Saban’s perspective, there’s no debating that the battle for No. 2 has been more heated than the competition for the top spot the past few seasons. Exhibit A: Alabama’s 54-16 win over Florida in the last SEC championship game. Alabama remains the decisive favorite to win a fourth consecutive SEC title despite losing four first-round NFL draft picks. No team has won the league four times in a row — or three for that matter before the Tide’s run — since Steve Spurrier and Florida dominated from 1993-96. The first test might just be Alabama’s biggest of the regular season. The Tide opens with another ACC power, Florida State, in Atlanta’s new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. “All the guys that did play in that (Clemson) game are really hungry to get back out there and play and show the world that we are one of the top teams in the nation,” ‘Bama receiver Calvin Ridley said. Quarterback Jalen Hurts, the SEC offensive player of the year, gives Saban a returning starter at quarterback for the first time since 2013. He heads a group of promising young passers including Georgia’s Jacob Eason, Mississippi’s Shea Patterson and South Carolina’s Jake Bentley. Not to mention transfers Jarrett Stidham at Auburn and Malik Zaire at Florida . In the SEC West, teams like LSU, Texas A&M and Auburn are trying to play catch up to the Tide. Georgia, Florida and Tennessee are among the East Division teams hoping to close the gap with their West counterparts, who have held an eight-year monopoly on SEC titles . The Gators have won the East crown in each of coach Jim McElwain‘s first two seasons but are aiming higher. “Getting that taste of nine wins, we now want to get more than that,” Florida defensive back Duke Dawson said. THE FAVORITES East: Georgia. Kirby Smart‘s second team has a strong backfield with Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, and Eason has a year of seasoning. LB Roquan Smith is among 10 returning defensive starters. West: Alabama. Like Eason, Hurts has big-time backs — plus star receiver Ridley — to target. The defense has seven NFL draft picks to replace but also returning standouts like defensive backs Minkah Fitzpatrick and Ronnie Harrison and tackle Da’Ron Payne. TOP PLAYERS Minkah Fitzpatrick, DB, Alabama. Versatile defender could play either safety or cornerback. Derrius Guice, RB, LSU. Leonard Fournette‘s backfield mate has center stage to himself. Hurts. The Tide is expecting him to be a better passer after an impressive freshman season somewhat marred by late-season struggles, especially in the playoffs. Arden Key, LB, LSU. Had 12 sacks last season. Missed spring practice for unspecified personal reasons. Christian Kirk, WR/RS, Texas A&M. Led the nation with three punt returns for touchdowns. His 83 catches topped the SEC, producing 928 yards and nine touchdowns. Frank Ragnow, C, Arkansas. Hasn’t allowed a sack the past two seasons and has started 26 straight games. NEW FACES Ex-Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron is back in the SEC West at LSU. His former program is trying to regroup from the July 20 resignation of Hugh Freeze while in the final stretch of an NCAA investigation. Interim coach and co-offensive coordinator Matt Luke is leading the Rebels. Alabama offensive coordinator Brian Daboll has been a much talked-about hire. ON THE HOT SEAT Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin is trying to avoid another November slump after three straight 8-5 seasons. Auburn’s Gus Malzahn hasn’t beaten top rivals Georgia and Alabama in three seasons. Getting warmish: Arkansas’ Bret Bielema and Tennessee’s Butch Jones. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
