Hugh Freeze out at Auburn: Good riddance
A few weeks ago Auburn was rolling against Georgia. For the first time in weeks, Jackson Arnold was looking like the five-star prospect that Oklahoma had recruited him to be. The offense was absolutely HUMMING, and so was Jordan-Hare.
Then came a call on a fumble on the goalline that was egregious to say the least that stopped momentum. Then there was a free timeout given to Kirby Smart thanks to ‘HandClap Gate’ and a targeting call that wasn’t given despite the fact that anyone watching could see it was targeting. To be honest, if you thought that a game was fixed, it would be his one.
But instead yelling at the TV interviewer, flying into the locker room to get his players wound up enough that they played like it was them against the world, he gave an ‘Aw, Shucks!’ sideline interview, and then went on his way. And that damp squib interview was reflected in a utterly piss-poor showing in the second half.
The whimpering continued. 17-point lead in the 4th quarter against Missouri? Loss. A second straight get-right game against Kentucky? Loss.
If there was a groundswell of hatred for Freeze before the game, then it was tidal wave after.
And to make matters worse, it didn’t seem that Freeze had listened to what John Cohen, his AD had said, when he didn’t give his football coach any backing at all. He said in October: “I don’t know if I’m going to walk outside and my car is going to start or not, I think it is…I have an expectation it will. But if my car doesn’t start enough, then I will evaluate that and make decisions about my car. But that’s not my expectation at this point about our football program.” You know what? Because against Kentucky, things were dreadful (let’s take Arkansas out of the equation, because that team is equally rudderless and head coachless (Gosh that seemed a long time ago).
So what Freeze was frozen out, you half expected the trees to get hit by toilet paper in celebration of the moment.
WHY DID THEY DO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?
My biggest question of all of this? Did Auburn really want to hire Freeze in the first place? Everyone, their partner and the dog and the dog down the street knew that Auburn wanted Lane Kiffin. But Kiffin stayed in town (we believe due to family relationships and less to do with money, because Auburn could have matched any offer Ole Miss would have put on the table), and Auburn went with Hugh Freeze, who not only had been kicked out of Ole Miss itself for bad behavior, but also had a pretty ordinary 49-34 record at Liberty – which included losing 5 straight in the last five games of his schedule – including a mind-blowing 49-14 thrashing at New Mexico State.
It seemed one of the most mediocre hires in recent year, and the results were low-iocre.
SUMRALL
Everyone’s on the ‘Lane Train’ so let’s park that one and talk about this one: Tulane’s Jon Sumrall. The Green Wave aren’t getting to the College Football Play-Off this year, and he’s had coaches to leave New Orleans before — most recently with North Carolina (as it goes he avoided that bullet!). Sumrall’s got the SEC resume, having played for Kentucky, gone to Ole Miss as a linebackers coach before returning to Lexington at DC. He’s also ambitious.
Personally, I’d love to see Cadillac Williams back. When he was given the assistant heaad coach’s job after Bryan Harsin was fired, he gave The Plains a sense of normalcy and hope that you get from one of the great SEC runnings. He’s got experience of the pros and is seen as one of the rising stars of college coaching. He knows the place and its crazy fanbase.
But that’s the SEC, where certain factors abound that make it – you know – unlikely.