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John Cohen didn’t reveal what was on his 58-point list that guided the coaching search that netted Auburn Hugh Freeze in November of 2022. He didn’t have to. Freeze had the one resume item that mattered. He had beaten Nick Saban and Alabama twice, in ways that forced the Crimson Tide’s coach to rethink how his unkillable war machine handled business. But in the end, he couldn’t do it again. Auburn created a public relations disaster for itself and it didn’t even get a single win against Alabama (or Georgia) out of it before Freeze was fired on Sunday after less than three full seasons. Retrospectively, it probably wasn’t a great sign that Cohen had to mention an accountability plan in his new head coach’s introductory press conference. “Coach Freeze was completely transparent about his past transgressions,” Cohen said during his introduction of Freeze.. “He showed remorse, and he’s had an accountability plan that he’s used for the last five-plus years. Everything he disclosed to us turned out to be accurate, after speaking with credible industry sources. In this way, coach Freeze was honest and truthful.” Cohen didn’t take questions as to why having a plan was enough to overlook what Freeze had done, from the alleged escort phone calls and harassing of sexual assault victims, to the NCAA mess he left Ole Miss with. Freeze hadn’t won a conference title since his Arkansas State Sun Belt championship in 2011. His Liberty teams had only met expectations once, and that was during the 2020 season that was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. After years away from the SEC, his offensive scheme wasn’t novel anymore. Neither was the “innovative” approach to NIL he allegedly took at Ole Miss, years before the practice went above the table. But he had those wins over Alabama. At a program that had seen its top two rivals become the SEC’s preeminent powers over the past two decades, that meant something, offered hope that the Tigers could ascend back to the top. Bryan Harsin had never done it. Gus Malzahn had, and it had saved him at times, but in the end it wasn’t enough. Freeze knew how important the game was. He fielded a question about it during his first SEC media days at Auburn. “The Iron Bowl is what it is,” Freeze said. “And I don’t have to be educated on that. I’ve been a part of some big rivalries and understand that in most polls this would be No. 1 in the rivalry, so I know what it means to the people that support our university and our football program.” Freeze was fired Sunday after Auburn suffered yet another embarrassing loss, this one to lowly Kentucky in a home night game. His final Auburn record against Alabama? 0-2. ‘It’s going to stick with us’ Freeze was right (for a while) to imply, as he did many times throughout his tenure, that the roster Harsin left him simply wasn’t up to competing in the SEC. But in the 2023 Iron Bowl, his first and best crack at getting Alabama, the roster quality didn’t seem to matter. Whatever haint possesses Jordan-Hare Stadium was in full swing that afternoon. With Payton Thorne at quarterback, Auburn seemed rudderless early, trailing at halftime, but with time winding down, the Tigers had the lead. Auburn had it. Absolutely had it. Freeze was going to do it in his first attempt, ruin an Alabama playoff season and take down Saban, the boogeyman in Tuscaloosa who had relegated AU to second-tier status in the state in all but a few of his 17 seasons. All the Tigers had to do was stop Alabama one more time. Everyone knows what happened next. Fourth-and-goal from the Auburn 31, and the Tigers bizarrely decided to split the difference between dropping everyone back and putting pressure on Jalen Milroe, effectively rushing two and leaving a third to spy without blitz nor coverage responsibility. Milroe went through his progression on a play called Gravedigger. There was Isaiah Bond, who went up and made the play, becoming a Daniel Moore painting when he came down with the ball. 27-24 Alabama. Final from Jordan-Hare. “It’s a lot of hurt in that locker room, and it stinks,” Freeze said afterward. “Our kids gave themselves a chance to win the Iron Bowl tonight, and it’s going to stick with us for a while.” Alabama went on to win an SEC championship and make the College Football Playoff. Then, following a Rose Bowl loss to Michigan, Saban retired. Suddenly, the enemy Freeze had been hired to vanquish was gone. ‘The frustrating part’ The losses to opponents Freeze-led teams should have beaten were always there. In 2014, the first year he beat Alabama with Ole Miss, the Rebels later lost 30-0 to unranked Arkansas. When he did it again in 2015, UM turned around and lost to an underdog Florida, Memphis and the (still unranked) Razorbacks once again. That got overlooked during his Auburn hire. Perhaps Freeze could have learned something at Alabama if the SEC hadn’t scuttled the move when Saban tried to hire him following his exit in disgrace from Ole Miss. Perhaps Saban’s greatest trait was the ability to avoid losing to worse teams throughout his Alabama career, something Freeze clearly lacked from Oxford, to his image rehab stint at Liberty, to his final game at Auburn, a loss to a Kentucky team that looked like a free-win voucher to the rest of the SEC. The slip-ups against the likes of Memphis and New Mexico State might have been more forgivable had Freeze found success against even a weakened, Kalen DeBoer-led 2024 Alabama team. But even against the Crimson Tide’s worst team since Saban’s initial 2007 squad, Auburn couldn’t get it done. The 2024 matchup wasn’t even close. Alabama won 24-14 and AU ended the season one win short of bowl eligibility. “We had chances to win games with who we are,” Freeze said after the game. “That’s the frustrating part for everyone, me included.” The 2025 season so far made it so Cohen had no choice. The Kentucky game featured an emptying student section calling for Freeze’s firing, and an offense so stagnant that even the decade-old Alabama wins weren’t enough potential to overlook reality anymore. Auburn began 3-0, though the best win in that stretch came in the opener against a lackluster Baylor squad. Then, SEC play hit the Tigers like a truck. Freeze finished his final Auburn season 1-5 in conference play, 4-5 overall. Throughout his tenure on the Plains, he went 15-19, 6-16 against SEC competition. And 0-2 in the game he was hired to win.
