Auburn Tigers football coach Hugh Freeze was deemed an impediment to his own program's sustained success on the Plains. Gus Malzahn, who was fired in 2020 and replaced by Bryan Harsin, was accused of being the same thing.
Bama Hammer's Ronald Evans believes Freeze has overcomplained about the situation he inherited from Harsin, and believes the Oxford, Mississippi native's recent comments about making a bowl game were to preserve his job for the 2026 season.
"None of this is good news for Alabama Football. Freeze, like Malzahn before him is an impediment to sustained success for the Auburn Tigers. Freeze can recruit and the 2025 roster is an upgrade for the Tigers. But like Malzahn, Freeze no longer holds any cred as an offensive genius. Worse than Malzahn, in Hugh's mind, no failing by Auburn is ever his fault," Evans wrote.
"Recently explaining why Auburn has lagged during his tenure, Freeze claimed he inherited a program without a single top 25 class in the four years that preceded him. Maybe those classes were not top 25 in Hugh's mind. They were by established recruiting sources: No. 16 nationally in 2022; No. 19 in 2021; No. 7 in 2020; and No. 12 in 2019.
"In the Portal era, roster rebuilds are two or at most three year cycles. Those old Auburn recruiting classes are irrelevant. In his third season at Auburn, Freeze should have all the player resources needed to compete with the SEC's top teams. Instead, he appears to be low-balling Auburn's 2025 chances to protect his job security for the 2026 season."
Freeze has not played his cards right from a media perspective nearly his entire time coaching the Tigers. Throwing his assistants and even certain players under the bus was a common theme in 2023 and 2024. His bowl game comments are Malzahn-ian given Gus's infamous "successful season" sentiment when his team went 6-4 in 2020.
Freeze isn't definitively working against the long-term interest of his program considering his recruiting success.
If he can't stop making excuses and setting expectations lower than the fanbase deserves, and most importantly, if he can't stop losing more than winning, Evans' comments will age like fine wine in 2025.