Sources: Auburn is hiring Hugh Freeze

At Ole Miss, Freeze defeated Nick Saban in back-to-back seasons and became the first SEC coach in 17 seasons to defeat Auburn, Alabama and LSU in the same season. He's now set to head the Auburn program.

Author:
Scott Roussel
Publish date:
Nov 28, 2022

5:15pm update> Auburn has now announced this hire. From the release:

"After a thoughtful, thorough, and well-vetted search, we ended where we started, with Hugh Freeze," Cohen said. "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."

Full release is here.

Original article>

Sources tell FootballScoop Auburn has an agreement to hire Hugh Freeze as the next head coach of the Tigers.

Agreement was reached after an in depth discussions and diligence by both sides. Freeze was a serious, if the not the lead, candidate from the start of a search that officially began on Halloween.

Freeze, 53, is a proven winner across many levels of college football. He went 20-5 at NAIA Lambuth, 10-2 at Arkansas State, and 34-15 at Liberty. Most important was his 5-year run at Ole Miss that peaked with the program's first Sugar Bowl in 46 years and the only back-to-back victories over Alabama in program history, and bottomed out in a cloud of scandal that saw him resign from the job in 2016.

Freeze spent the 2017-18 seasons out of the game, then returned at Liberty and within two seasons produced a 10-1 record with a No. 17 final ranking, the only AP Top 25 finish in school history.

Freeze now heads a program with more boom or bust potential than any in college football. In a 4-season span from 2010-13, Auburn went undefeated and won a national title, went winless in SEC play and then, the following season, dethroned 2-time defending national champion Alabama on its way to a BCS national championship appearance.

Prior to Bryan Harsin, the last four Auburn head coaches either went undefeated or played for a national title.

As always, head directly to The Scoop for the latest coaching news from around the country.

Update> Sources tell FootballScoop one of his first, if not Hugh's very first, hires will be Dom Studzinski his associate head coach / head strength & conditioning coach at Liberty.