The Auburn football hasn’t learned from the contractual sins of its head coaching past according to OutKick’s Grayson Weir — who questioned why the Tigers were willing to give Hugh Freeze a clause in his contract that’d pay him 75% of his remaining salary at the time of his firing.
“So what happens if Freeze gets fired? Auburn doesn’t seem to have learned from its past,” Weir prefaced before saying, “Freeze’s buyout would pay him 75% of the remaining contract if he gets fired without cause. There would also be no offset if he took another job.” As Weir pointed out, AU is feeling the effects of buyout clauses already, having fired Bryan Harsin and Gus Malzahn in the last two and a half years.
“Remember that Malzahn and Harsin are owed a lot of money already,” Weir wrote. “They were owed at least 70 percent of their remaining contract — without any kind of financial offset if they take another job (Malzahn is at UCF, for example) — when they got fired. Those buyouts were substantial on their own, but even more so when paid out at the same time.”
Analyst points out one positive for Auburn football in Hugh Freeze contract
It wasn’t all bad when it came to Weir’s assessment of Freeze’s Auburn football contract. The OutKick writer pointed out that the Tigers at least avoided handing out a lump sum payment should AU fire the Oxford native.
“(Freeze) will still be owed most of his remaining contract (after a potential firing), but his money will be paid out in equal monthly installments,” Weir wrote. “That’s at least some improvement. Just as an example — Let’s say that Freeze gets fired without cause after 2023. That (probably?) won’t happen, but let’s pretend. If the firing went down in that timeline, Freeze would be owed just over $27 million. He would get a monthly check of a predetermined amount until that number is down to zero.”
Let’s hope talks of what happens in the event of a Freeze firing never come to fruition. Some stability at the head football coach position on the Plains would be nice for a change.