Is Hugh Freeze the Right Man For Auburn?

June 13, 2023 by CollegeFootballPoll.com Staff

Since the start of the 2022 season, 24 schools have changed its head coach. Auburn is one of those, as the Tigers try to replicate the success they had in 2010 and 2013.

With Hugh Freeze at the helm, Auburn opens the 2023 season at home against UMass as a 38-point favorite versus one of the worst teams in the FBS over the past several seasons. The Tigers follow that up with a trip to Cal before returning home to face Samford, a quality in-state FCS program.

A 2-1 start is likely and a 3-0 jump is possible. Unfortunately, a four-game gauntlet ensues with a trip to Texas A&M, a home date with Georgia, a visit to LSU, and a home clash with Ole Miss. Given that a 0-4 conference start is almost for certain, it's a bit surprising to find that Auburn has the 7th-best odds to win the SEC.

Auburn appeared in the BCS national championship game in 2013, falling 34-31 to Florida State in the school's first season under Gus Malzahn. That came three years after winning the 2010 BCS title by edging Oregon 22-19 with Gene Chizik at head coach.

Chizik would be run off less than two years later claiming that title, while Malzahn was in place for seven more years before being dismissed at the end of the 2020 Covid season.

It's worth noting that Chizik's teams went 11-14 on the two years following the championship season, and Malzahn only had one more 10-win campaign after losing that title tilt to the 'Noles.

Malzahn has since gone on to success at UCF, while Chizik spent a few seasons on TV as an analyst but also logged two years as the DC at North Carolina from 2015-2016 under Larry Fedora, and returned to Chapel Hill in 2022 to fill that same position under Mack Brown.

Since firing Malzahn, the Auburn football program has gone 11-15 under two different interim head coaches - Kevin Steele (0-1) and "Cadillac" Williams (2-2) - and 9-12 under Bryan Harsin.

Auburn has won just one of its last 5 postseason games.

Now the Tigers turn to a man who spent the last four seasons resurrecting his career at Liberty where he was 34-15, including a high water mark of 10-1 in the 2020 Covid season.

Freeze ran afoul of the NCAA when he was the head coach at Ole Miss from 2012-2016, having 27 wins vacated with only the 2015 season (10-3) untouched by penalties for violations that began under his predecessor, Houston Nutt, but continued under Freeze. Ultimately, it was the discovery of calls to an escort service that led to his demise in Oxford which made it a bit ironic that he wound up getting a new lease on his head coaching life at a Baptist school.

Nonetheless, he has a shot at redemption with his return to the SEC.

Freeze's first recruiting class at Auburn wasn't much to raise expectations as that group ranked in the middle of the SEC pack at 247sports with zero 5-stars, ten 4-stars, and eleven 3-stars. However, the transfer portal proved to be a different story as the Tigers ranked 3rd in the nation, behind Colorado and LSU.

Freeze seemingly landed his 2023 starting QB in early May when Michigan State's Payton Thorne announced Auburn as his transfer destination. From 2020-2022 in East Lansing, Thorne compiled 6,493 yards passing with 49 TD's and 24 INT's. He started every game last season for the Spartans and threw for 2,679 yards with 19 TD's, but was also picked off 11 times.

We honestly are not sure if Auburn has made an upgrade at head coach by turning to Freeze. Auburn boosters turned their backs quickly on Harsin, and the fan base will be loathe to give Freeze much time to demonstrate improvement.

The SEC schedule is not just tough, it's downright nasty. We'll let you decide for yourself where the wins might come from.

9/23 at Texas A&M
9/30 Georgia
10/14 at LSU
10/21 Mississippi
10/28 Mississippi State
11/4 at Vanderbilt
11/11 at Arkansas
11/25 Alabama

We're not inclined to take 0-8 off the table with no more than 4 chances for conference victories. Those would be the home games against Ole Miss and Mississippi State, and the road trips to Vanderbilt and Arkansas.

Over-all, we see a wide range from 7-5 as the best-case scenario, with 3-9 as the worst.