Analyst takes shot at Auburn football HC Hugh Freeze following Ole Miss’ Chris Beard hiring
The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel took aim at three SEC programs and the SEC’s brain trust in a March 13 callout of the conference following Ole Miss’ hiring of Chris Beard as the head basketball coach of the Rebels. Auburn football and Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze, and Texas A&M/Aggies offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino were also caught in the crossfire of Mandel’s criticism of the Beard hire.
In the last few months the SEC has welcomed Hugh Freeze, Bobby Petrino and Chris Beard. https://t.co/Y7bVlryVcd
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) March 13, 2023
Now on the surface, it would seem Mandel was merely listing several indisputable facts. Yes, Beard, Freeze, and Petrino are all members of the SEC after being hired within the past four and a half months.
But looking deeper, Mandel was pointing out what he sees as a troubling trend for the Southeastern Conference.
Auburn football HC Hugh Freeze, Ole Miss basketball HC Chris Beard, and Texas A&M OC Bobby Petrino are all controversial figures — for varying reasons
The common thread between Freeze, Beard, and Petrino is that they all have black marks on their records that got them removed from SEC programs — and in the case of Beard at Texas, a future SEC program.
It’s important to note the distinction between what each man did. In the case of Petrino and Freeze, the two had sexual misconduct violations that were not up to the standard of Arkansas and Ole Miss at the time of their firings in 2012 and 2017, respectively. Both spent years outside the SEC before returning to the conference.
Beard was accused of domestic abuse of his fiancé — including allegations of strangulation or suffocation — and was fired from the Longhorns program on January 5 earlier this year.
Though charges were dropped on February 15, the damage is already done in the eyes of the public. Texas won’t be an official member of the SEC until the fall of 2024, but regardless, Ole Miss bringing on a Power Five coach not long removed from this incident is a bad look.
AL.com’s Joseph Goodman made a similar comparison between Beard and Lane Kiffin, and that too was flawed. Beard is the most blatant example of trading public perception for wins college sports has seen in recent history.