AL.com's Hugh Freeze golf cartoon shows how far Auburn coach has come in public's eye

AL.com just published a cartoon about Auburn Tigers football coach Hugh Freeze that depicts him holding a golf club in a manner that's clearly an ode to Astronomer's CEO and Head of Human Resources being caught canoodling at a Coldplay concert in Boston.

AL.com's JD Crowe explained his shoutout to Freeze's seemingly addictive golf habit, the viral cheating incident, and Lane Kiffin calling out Freeze for his addictive golf habit in clever fashion.

"Today’s toon catches Freeze in the act of having an affair with his side action when he should be focused on recruiting - and hanging onto - 5-star football players. That seems to be the message from fans, pundits and Joey Freshwater," Crowe wrote.

It's a fun jab. A light-hearted joke. Possibly a reference to Freeze's infidelity issues during his time coaching the Ole Miss Rebels, but nothing that crosses the line in any meaningful way.

Nothing like the way AL.com used to depict Freeze.

In 2022, the publication shared a cartoon on its official Twitter page of a shadowy figure in a van, asking where on the Plains he could find a "Christian escort service." The cartoon was titled "Auburn could have had a Cadillac..."

Fans detested it at the time. They still should.

Freeze hasn't done much to earn goodwill on the Plains, breaking fans' hearts more by recruiting so well and not putting it together on the field. But he never earned the kind of scorn that borders on slander that he got.

Perhaps his prostate cancer diagnosis has the local media easing up on the personal shots. Perhaps watching him not squander the state's taxpayers' hard-earned money through general inactivity, unlike his predecessor, earned him that grace.

Either way, Freeze has come a long way since he was first hired by AD John Cohen and the rest of Auburn's brain trust on November 28, 2022.