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Auburn football: B/R uses hiring backlash to justify low Hugh Freeze HC ranking

By Andrew Hughes

Bleacher Report's Morgan Moriarty listed the Auburn football head coach hiring of Hugh Freeze under 'the rest' section in her rankings Mandatory Credit: Adam Hagy-USA TODAY Sports
Bleacher Report's Morgan Moriarty listed the Auburn football head coach hiring of Hugh Freeze under 'the rest' section in her rankings Mandatory Credit: Adam Hagy-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Hugh Freeze hiring by Auburn football is not going to be viewed positively by most until the former Liberty and Ole Miss (and per tradition, Arkansas State) head coach proves himself on the field. The reasons for that are two-fold.

First, Freeze will have to battle the perception that he wasn’t new Auburn University Athletic Director John Cohen’s first choice. The Lane Kiffin chatter was a very real thing up until a few days before the Freeze hiring was official. Kiffin continuing to tweet about AU after spurning the Plains to stay in Ole Miss and receive a $72 million extension adds fuel to that fire.

Second, his past is too problematic in aggregate for many college football fans to overcome. Perhaps most troubling was his reaching out to a rape victim at Liberty with a somewhat aggressive tone in his defense of LU’s AD Ian McCaw, but that plus his use of escorts at Ole Miss and the unsettling stories of his time at Briarcrest Christian School presents a package that is problematic at best and disturbing at worst. Especially to a woman.

With all of that said, Bleacher Report’s Morgan Moriarty not ranking Freeze in her piece titled ‘Ranking the 10 Best 2022 CFB Coaching Hires so Far’ and instead including him in a section dubbed ‘the rest,’ is thus, not much of a surprise.

Hugh Freeze to Auburn football continues to be considered worse hire than Trent Dilfer at UAB

Some Auburn football fans are imagining Hugh Freeze continuing to challenge Nick Saban — given the slim 3-2 advantage Saban has in the head-to-head matchup — and the new Tigers coach hasn’t been shy about calling the Crimson Tide’s legendary HC out during his introductory news conference.

Many in the media are more worried about Freeze reaching the level of UAB’s Trent Dilfer, though. Bleacher Report’s Morgan Moriarty and AL.com’s Joseph Goodman are higher on Dilfer making an immediate impact in the AAC with UAB than they are about Freeze having success off the bat upon his return to the SEC.

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