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.
Virus wreaking havoc on SEC with Nick Saban now testing positive
The Southeastern Conference had to postpone two games in the last three days because of positive COVID-19 tests, and now Alabama coach Nick Saban and his athletic director have tested positive for the virus ahead of the league’s biggest regular-season showdown. Saban said in a statement Wednesday that he’ll be working from home with offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian overseeing the second-ranked Crimson Tide’s preparations to play No. 3 Georgia on Saturday night. “At this time, I do not have any symptoms relative to COVID, and I have taken another PCR test to confirm my diagnosis,” said Saban, whose AD Greg Byrne also tested positive. No. 10 Florida’s game against defending national champion LSU was postponed Wednesday to tentatively Dec. 12 after the SEC postponed Missouri-Vanderbilt on Monday. More positive tests could derail other games after the league waited until the end of September to kick off the season due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Gators started testing daily Sunday and paused activities Tuesday after 19 positives with about a dozen more quarantined through contact tracing. Athletic director Scott Stricklin said they had 18 positives among scholarship players plus three walk-ons for a total of 21. That left the Gators with less than 50 scholarship players available. Stricklin said it can sneak up on a team in a hurry and the key is hitting the brake. “The SEC schedule was set up with something with an event like this in mind,” Stricklin said. “As much as we want to give our kids the opportunity to compete, we understand this isn’t a normal year and we’re going to have to have the ability to adapt to unusual circumstances such as this.” Florida is hoping those numbers don’t rise further, not that coach Dan Mullen wanted to speculate on the tests. “We’re certainly hoping and everybody that we’ve worked for getting these tests back before we conduct any team activity to make sure that we’re keeping everyone as safe as possible,” Mullen said. Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason is going through a similar situation. He said his Commodores (0-3) are a “shell” after he had an estimated group of players in the “high 40s” available for practice Wednesday with a couple of coaches involved in this outbreak. Vanderbilt has an open date Oct. 24 and won’t play again until hosting Mississippi on Oct. 31. Mason also noted this issue isn’t a Vanderbilt problem, noting how the NFL’s Tennessee Titans were down for 16 days while testing players daily. Every coach will be watching to see how many players are available the rest of this season. “For college football, it’s a red flag or something that we really have to be aware of in terms of understanding that we don’t control everything,” Mason said. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said his Rebels are dealing with their first COVID-19 issue of the season. He called it a “big challenge” for a team already banged up after a very physical game in a 63-48 loss to No. 2 Alabama. His Rebels (1-2) are scheduled to visit Arkansas (1-2) on Saturday after their 63-48 loss to No. 2 Alabama. Kiffin wouldn’t be more specific. “Just like injuries, we’re not going to get into details on that,” Kiffin said. “We’re just trying to manage it the best we can. Ole Miss, like Vanderbilt and now Florida, could quickly find the game schedule changing depending on the next batch of test results. “I hope not,” Kiffin said of a potential postponement. “If we were to play today, we could play. So hopefully it stays that way.” Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt said Monday that he had his entire team together for just the third straight week after testing and tracing had left players sidelined in isolation or quarantine. Georgia coach Kirby Smart said he knows his team is one exposure away from having an issue. “We’ve been very fortunate so far, but we don’t have our test results back even from this week,” Smart said Tuesday. Vanderbilt already was hit hard by having so many players opt-out of this season because of the pandemic. The number has been reported as six Commodores opting out, including the kicker and four offensive linemen. Mason said Wednesday that total is closer to 10, which would be an SEC-high. The numbers coaches will be monitoring most closely will be how many scholarship players are available. To play, the SEC requires at least 53 on game days. Vanderbilt had only 56 last weekend in a 41-7 loss to South Carolina. Having an open date should help Vanderbilt suit up enough players to play Oct. 31. Mason said Vanderbilt has anyone who tests positive go into isolation for 10 days, followed by cardiac screening and then a cardiac MRI adding another three days to the process. Players also need at least three or four days of conditioning to play. Timing is critical depending on the day of the week a positive test or tracing result returns. “Every time you’re taking a test,” Mason said, “you’re crossing your fingers … you don’t have anybody in harm’s way.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
