Hugh Freeze's Auburn Tigers locker room was dysfunctional. The disappointing results on the field made that much obvious.
It may have been even more of a dumpster fire behind the scenes than anyone could've imagined, though. After Alex Golesh looked under the hood, some ugly truths about some of the top earners on the team were revealed.
All of them paint a clear picture of a locker room in disrepair, lacking a leader who dared to stand up to the chaos for the sake of the greater good of the team. Essentially, certain players got the equivalent of James Harden's treatment from the Houston Rockets in the late 2010s: autonomy to be as me-first and team-last as possible.
Rumors range from certain top receivers having too much fun as college students who didn't balance the student-athlete life as million-dollar athletes on the university's payroll, to more serious allegations regarding some of the defensive transfers. One player allegedly asked for money for a family member before boarding a plane for an away game.
Crain & Company's Jake Crain, who has strong connections in the Yellowhammer State as a former South Alabama Jaguars assistant, confirmed that a lot of what's being reported is true. Crain didn't get into each allegation, though. Former linebacker Chandler Wooten sounded convinced some of it was real and endorsed cleaning house in the locker room.
No wonder Freeze was so mad at his players after games and threw them under the bus.
Come to think of it, though, it was never the players mentioned in these rumors he'd be going after in the postgame pressers. He couldn't even get that right.
This report may indefinitely cost Freeze a Power 4 coaching job. Maybe a desperate Group of 5 team would consider giving him a chance after how he managed the Liberty Flames during his time there, but that was before the rev-share era.
Now, it's known that Freeze is crooked with spending university funds. We already knew he was inappropriate about using university communication devices.
It may cost at least some of the players involved, too.
Auburn transfers may financially suffer from locker room rumors
Many former Tigers in the transfer portal are now tied to this mess, whether they were complicit or not. Every school with interest in these players will either want extra research done, which could either cost the players on the back end for the extra labor, or could undo interest altogether.
Some involved will have too robust a market for that to matter. Some of the lesser allegations will not be enough to deter top teams from adding top talent.
Others will absolutely receive lower offers because of the stigma and added pressure overpaying for a perceived problematic player would cause within a given fanbase. Some of the allegations could force early retirements.
These reported findings don't make AU look good in any sense, but a lot of the blame will go to Freeze from a narrative perspective. The Tigers could move on if they start getting things right under Golesh. Winning makes many have short memories.
Few will forget what they read in these reports, though, which is catastrophic for some of the players involved.