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This is an opinion column. So close? Try never further. Hugh Freeze, the build-a-bear/lab-grown Auburn football coach, was ultimately just a tease. Canned less than three years into what felt like a slam-dunk, double-sided redemption story, Freeze becomes a cautionary tale. Auburn was bundled up, expecting Aspen, but was shipped back to Siberia. And got stuck with the bill. Again. Let’s do the math now that Freeze can confirm his Sunday afternoon tee time. He becomes the third Auburn football coach fired since the end of the 2020 season. Their buyouts, in order. Gus Malzahn: $21.4 million Bryan Harsin: $15.3 million Freeze: $15.8 million That’s $52.5 million set ablaze at the 50-yard line of Jordan-Hare Stadium and that’s before you count the buyouts for assistant coaches. At some point, we need to question the brass behind these hires. But if we’re being honest, only Harsin felt wrong from the beginning and Malzahn actually delivered results for most of his tenure. All three were hired by different ADs, anyway. John Cohen is left writing the failure-fee check on this one after taking the plunge with Freeze three years ago. He used some equity by hiring a former SEC coach who had previously resigned at Mississippi in shame. Overlooking the off-field matters that led to his premature departure was viewed as juice worth the squeeze. Yeah, there were some unflattering conduct, but he beat Alabama twice. The guy can recruit. And he’s won everywhere he’s coached. Freeze had the aww-shucks, high-school-coach-rocket-ship-to-the-SEC background that worked for Malzahn. Did I mention he beat Alabama? Twice. Perhaps no two games changed the trajectory of a coach more than those from Oct. 4, 2014, and Sept. 19, 2015. And Auburn’s paying for it. Freeze came … close to beating Auburn’s biggest rival in 2023 in Year 1. In perfect foreshadowing of this era’s legacy, the Tigers couldn’t finish the job when a 31-yard pass on 4th-and-goal spoiled the Jordan-Hare party. It got worse from there as the losses piled up and the excuses multiplied. Freeze still recruited well, but he never did the one thing his reputation carried. The guy couldn’t find or develop a quarterback. That’s where the cautionary tale begins and the next charge for Cohen begins. It seemed like there was a reluctance on Freeze’s part to fully embrace the transfer portal at first. After Year 1 saw former Michigan State QB Payton Thorne struggle, Freeze opted to stick with the passer who never felt ready for SEC primetime. There were a few big names in the portal, and with his reputation for development and surely the money to make it happen, Freeze took a passive approach and stuck by Thorne. The Tigers were a turnover mess even with improved receiver talent, regressed in Year 2 and failed to make a bowl game. Then he missed on the next transfer, this time a former five-star in Jackson Arnold. Just didn’t work. The magic that developed Bo Wallace and Chad Kelly in Oxford was gone. The sure thing was shanked into the trees. Freeze couldn’t stop saying how close Auburn was in spite of the facts smacking everyone in the face. Only once in three seasons did his Tigers win a game they weren’t supposed to. The program, as a whole, didn’t necessarily regress under Freeze. That’s only because Harsin’s 21-game failure was such a mess and there was only so much further to dig. Auburn is just stuck in this cycle of mediocrity, it can’t escape. It hasn’t been a realistic player on the national scene since 2017 and that starts to form atrophy. And that’s why Cohen and Co., need to be bold with this next hire. They need a forward-thinking strategy that seeks the best coach for this generation of college football and not a guy who was good a decade ago. This is about vision over scheme. It requires a plan to address the revenue-sharing/NIL era of the sport, as this program has financial support. Cohen is a baseball guy, so let’s put it like this: Auburn can’t afford to swing and miss again. The further this program gets from national relevance, the easier it gets for apathy to envelop a culture. Now, Auburn’s jumping into a crowded pool of major programs with an empty head coach’s office. LSU’s an institutional mess. Florida’s a sleeping giant, so Auburn can’t be passive. Harsin was the punishment the last time it failed there. He was fired less than two years later, along with the AD who made the hire. Freeze was the obvious pick who ultimately circled the same drain. Now, it’s on Cohen to get it right, not just in concept but on the field. Because the magic is gone in Auburn. Jordan-Hare is frozen over. And it can’t afford another flop.
