The Auburn Tigers may or may not be on the precipice of firing head football coach Hugh Freeze before or after the end of the 2025 season.
On one hand, John Cohen and the rest of the team's power brokers believe Freeze's team should be 5-1, and not 3-3, blaming the SEC's officiating and even believing the conference is scheming something nefarious behind the scenes.
On the other, Freeze's program has been a subpar product that costs too much and is frustrating to watch. It's unclear how long Tiger fans will take this. There are already discussions on social media about fans not funding the program in 2026 if Freeze is still around.
A loss to the Missouri Tigers, and in general, a rough stretch for Auburn over the next four weeks, will determine if DJ Durkin is the interim head coach by the Iron Bowl. In that event, Bama Hammer's Ronald Evans believes a small pool of coaches would qualify as true candidates for the job.
Evans believes AU's power brokers will prioritize a coach who's beaten Nick Saban or Kalen DeBoer since 2007, leaving a small pool of potential options. He was also quite clear it'd be someone seen as a screw-up.
"Going back to the 2007 Alabama football season, 25 college football coaches have won against Nick Saban or Kalen DeBoer. That is not Auburn's short list, but take away the ones who will never coach again, plus the ones that would never consider Auburn, and Cohen's short list to replace Freeze is clear," Evans wrote.
"Many Alabama football fans prefer that Auburn retain Freeze. While that would be the best result for Alabama, there is no need to worry about the coach the Tigers will hire. Auburn will screw it up again."
Of the names possible, the most plausible-sounding are Gus Malzahn, Dabo Swinney, Brian Kelly, Ed Orgeron, or Jimbo Fisher. Those would be the options seen as screw-ups by opposing fanbases, though the Plains would likely appreciate a Malzahn return or Dabo's championship pedigree and values. Kelly is a wildcard, but Oregeron would be seen as an eye-roll given how his LSU Tigers tenure ended, and Fisher would similarly be viewed as a Heisman quarterback merchant.
We'll see if Freeze and the Tigers thrust Auburn's powers that be into yet another coaching search.