Auburn Football has had a rough last couple years since Gus Malzahn was fired. The Tigers have had multiple losing seasons under former HC Bryan Harsin. Harsin was an ineffective leader with his own set of issues, which ultimately led to his 2022 mid-season firing. Reports from players claimed that Harsin treated the players “like dogs”. Rumor also had it Harsin was having an affair with an Auburn staffer.
As bad as Harsin ended up being at Auburn, it seems that the root of the problem is actually the Athletic Dept and Boosters. Rather than hire Malzahn’s DC Kevin Steele who the Booster’s were in support of, the Athletic Dept ended up with Harsin after missing out on Mario Cristobal, Billy Napier, and Bill Clark. The Booster’s seemed upset with the Athletic’s Dept ability to land a higher end coach.
Flash forward to November 28, 2022, the Auburn Tigers hire now former Liberty HC Hugh Freeze. The Hugh Freeze hiring was big across the news and social media not just because he was the “higher end” coach the Boosters wanted in the post-Malzahn era, but because of one of the conditions of his hiring. Known for his activity on twitter, reports had it that Hugh had to relinquish control of all social media when he got hired by Auburn.
The good news for Tigers fans is that it feels like Coach Freeze is already starting to make an impact on the recruiting trail. In a three day span, Coach Freeze was able to flip two of the 2024 cycle’s top recruits… Not to mention one was from rival Georgia, and the other from rival Alabama.
On July 26, the Tigers were able to flip 5-Star LB Demarcus Riddick from Georgia, who is the LB3 and the 46th overall recruit.
Important to note, Riddick is Auburn’s first 5-Star recruit since 2019.
On July 29, the Tigers were able to flip 5-Star WR Perry Thompson, who is the WR4 and 14th overall recruit.
What makes these commit flips even more interesting is that Georgia is known for their LB recruits and development, and the same goes for Alabama and their WR recruits/development. Georgia and Alabama year in and year out are National Championship contenders, while Auburn hasn’t been a serious National Championship contender since their 2014 Appearance where they lost to Florida state.
This is not us accusing Auburn or new HC Hugh Freeze of anything; however, the quick flip of recruits for us has our “Spidey-Senses” tingling. For those who aren’t heavily into college football, Hugh Freeze was formerly the HC at Ole Miss from 2012-2016. In July of 2017, just about a month before the start of the season, he resigned as the head coach as a result of an investigation into his phone records that found a “concerning pattern” of calls to a female escort service.
Ole Miss shortly after was given sanctions/“lower-end” death penalty. The NCAA ruled that the Rebels were accused of 15 Level I Violations, almost entirely due to Booster involvement in recruitment. Penalties included three years of probation, monetary penalties, multiple “show-cause” orders, vacated wins, scholarship reductions, recruiting restrictions, and a disassociation of the Ole Miss Boosters.
Again, this is not us saying to expect Auburn to be under investigation soon or in the future, but Coach Freeze already has a history of recruiting violations at one school. He kept his nose clean at Liberty after a two year hiatus(2017-2018) from coaching, but Liberty is not a Power 5 school or a serious National Championship contender.
Now being back at a Power 5 where he could potentially compete in a couple years from now, you never know. Hopefully he learned from his mistakes, and history doesn’t repeat itself, but the quick commit flips set the alarms off in our head a little bit. The Auburn Booster’s finally get their higher end coach, and they seem like they have heavy influence or at least opinion in the program. “Overstepping” Boosters mixed with new HC Hugh Freeze creates an uneasy feeling for us about the Auburn football program.
Regardless, Auburn fans probably have another year or two to wait for more wins than they’ve watched recently and pray that they avoid scandal.