Sometimes, entire seasons, entire tenures can be summarized into a single statistic. Here's one: Three FBS teams have to allow 24 points in a game this season. Two, Indiana and Ohio State, are 17-0. The third is Auburn.
Auburn fired Hugh Freeze on Sunday, as first reported by FootballScoop. Really, millions watched the firing happen in real time, when Auburn found a way to lose to previously-winless-in-SEC-play Kentucky. Ten to three.
Here is is his coaching autopsy.
What was the high point? Nov. 25, 2023, 43 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Facing a fourth-and-the-game from the 31-yard line, all Auburn had to do was limit Alabama to 30 yards or fewer and the Tigers would have one of the biggest upset wins in program history. We all know how it ended, but for that moment, it was all out in front of them.
The second high point came Dec. 1, when Cam Coleman flipped from Texas A&M to Auburn. Freeze knocked off the 15th-ranked Aggies at Jordan-Hare Stadium last November, but life at Auburn means you compete for national championships or you die trying. Winning a big-boy recruiting battle for difference-making talent means more than any individual victory in a 5-7 season.
What was the low point? Nov. 25, 2023, 34 seconds left. A tip to all coaches and future coaches out there: When you rush two (with a QB spy???), you're basically rushing zero. There are no moral victories in the Iron Bowl, and particularly not when you allow a 4th-and-31 to enter the lore of the rival program. It's probably been a while since you watched this sequence, so let's give it a whirl.
The other low point was, obviously, Saturday. The difference in energy between leaving Jordan-Hare after losing the 2023 Iron Bowl and losing 10-3 to Kentucky. I imagine there were lots of silent walks to the cars those nights, for entirely different reasons.
What did Freeze get right? Signing the likes of Coleman these days doesn't just happen with a wink and a smile. His hiring ignited the necessary belief -- both from the Coleman camp and the Auburn money people -- to get him on campus. Freeze also built one of the most consistent defenses in college football. They weren't good enough to win games on their own, but no one told them they had to be.
What did Freeze get wrong? Plenty. For starters, Freeze bet his career on Jackson Arnold, and Arnold turned out to be the same guy he was at Oklahoma. That was either a failure of identification or development, but it was a failure nonetheless. That clip from August told the story. At present, Auburn is 16th in the SEC in yards per attempt, passer rating, passing touchdowns, and passing offense. In terms of passer rating, it's the least threatening passing offense in the SEC since... 2022 Auburn.
Outside of that, Freeze lost the battle of public perception, and at times he lost it with himself. The "different play-callers on every down" thing was a self-inflicted wound, and one that became an evergreen punchline considering Auburn was as every bit as woeful as they appeared to be. That one boiled down to the same question Auburn has been dealing with for a while now -- should the head coach call plays or not? -- and Freeze never found the right answer. Freeze also got bullied by Lane Kiffin about his offseason golfing habits, putting him on the defensive. As they say in politics, if you're explaining, you're losing.
He also asked AD John Cohen for a (previously dreaded) vote of confidence, and heard crickets in return. To quote Seinfeld, that was a 2,000-pound matzo ball hanging out there for two full weeks.
And then there was Freeze's favorite saying, now written on the tombstone across his tenure: We're close. It started a while back, when Netflix cameras showed Freeze apologizing to his Tiger vets that they wouldn't get to experience the "fullness of Auburn football." It continued even to last night. "I wish I could ask for patience, but that's not really something people want to give in this day and time, but I understand that," Freeze said after the Kentucky loss. "I just know we're so dang close and if we had a few things go our way earlier in the year, we're looking at a whole different deal."
Auburn completely cratered in the second half of the Georgia game, and was buckling plenty before that. After 34 games under Freeze, the only thing the Tigers were close to was the bottom of the SEC standings.
What did Auburn get right? Outside of calling plays for him, Auburn put the pieces in place for Freeze to win at least eight games this year.
What did Auburn get wrong? Gus Malzahn finished above .500 in SEC play in four of his last five seasons, including his final two. His 2019 team won the Iron Bowl -- the last time Auburn did that -- and finished No. 14 in both polls. The 2025 season will now be Auburn's fifth straight sub-.500 SEC season.
It's fine to move on from Malzahn after eight mostly-successful seasons, but this will now be the program's third at-bat just to get back to a place they decided was no longer good enough. And considering the game of tug-of-war that Auburn head coaches have played with their own play sheet, it might be best for the time being to hire a defensive-minded head coach so there's no question about who's in charge of the offense.
Where does Freeze go from here? Freeze's contract includes no duty to mitigate, so he's free to play as many rounds of golf as his schedule can handle without having to look over his shoulder for 'ol Lane.
Where does Auburn go from here? It's not often we get to say this, but compared to LSU, Auburn's situation looks downright stable. The blue-and-orange Tigers should see if they can out-normal the purple-and-gold Tigers and win the services of Jon Sumrall.