The Auburn Tigers may find that their coaching search could be tougher if they pull the trigger on firing Hugh Freeze now, as opposed to next year. FanSided's Cody Williams believes AU should wait if the Florida Gators, Texas Longhorns, and LSU Tigers jobs all open up.
Florida's already is after Billy Napier's dismissal last week following a win over the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Texas's job could open up if Steve Sarkisian takes an NFL job. LSU's role could become available if Brian Kelly's team continues to be an expensive letdown.
Williams believes Auburn could fall behind the eight-ball if they prematurely if they ride the coaching carousel.
"While we obviously know the upside of the Auburn program and the national championship potential there, that is also true of Texas and Florida. Furthermore, one could argue that, given their more recent track record of success, that both jobs would be more attractive than taking over for Freeze on The Plains," Williams wrote.
"Now, it should be said that the Florida job has signs that it might be filled by current Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin. However, given what Kiffin has built with the Rebels, there's a non-zero chance that the program in Oxford will be a more attractive position currently, not based on overall potential, than a job at Auburn might be. And all of this is before we consider that LSU could potentially move on from Brian Kelly should the downward spiral continue in Baton Rouge."
Hugh Freeze is the luckiest man in Auburn history
Some say Bryan Harsin preceding Freeze would be unlucky, but it wasn't. If anything, the Boise native's failures set up a southern man to come in and restore the standard AU had at least under Gus Malzahn.
Instead, Freeze has come in, granted he recruited his tail off, but he let the wheels fall off when the clock started ticking in the second halves of games. He wasted NIL spend that could've gone to Bruce Pearl's program. Perhaps Bruce would've had more incentive to stay with more resources. Bruce's retirement felt sudden in late September, less than two months before the start of the 2025-26 college basketball season, and that it didn't coincide with a political run opens up the door for speculation on what led to his handing the program off to his son before anyone thought he would.
Freeze is lucky he's still coaching for however long he has. Especially if other SEC schools' hiring cycle is the primary reason.