USA Today calls Hugh Freeze a 'petulant child' who Auburn football doesn't want to play hard for

USA Today's Patrick Conn is no fan of Hugh Freeze, and his hot seat rankings through Week 7 certainly proved that point. Conn called Auburn football's head coach a "petulant child" and insinuated that the locker room would fully buy into his culture if Freeze stopped calling out his players to the media.

"The good news is that Auburn didn’t play this past weekend so quarterback Payton Thorne didn’t have to worry about being thrown under the bus again," Conn prefaced before saying, "Now for the bad news, the Tigers are still searching for the first SEC win of the year. The Missouri Tigers are up next for Freeze, who stated he is looking for guys who will fight for 60 minutes of football. Perhaps if you fell on the sword every once in a while instead of acting like a petulant child in your post-game pressers, they might be willing to play harder."

We know the national media hates Freeze, but even this reads as over the top. Yet when your team is underperforming to the degree Auburn is, them's the breaks.

Hugh Freeze has handled few situations well for Auburn football this season

Freeze's handling of the QB situation before the New Mexico game -- complimenting Payton Thorne all week until the plug was pulled and Hank Brown was named the starter -- and his lack of clarity, until this past Monday anyway, on the fourth-down play-call against Georgia in the second half that essentially lost AU the game earned him this scrutiny.

When your team is as bad as the Tigers are record-wise, accountability is everything. Freeze not taking any is making him unpopular to everyone outside of Auburn's fanbase.

At least there are the incoming 2025 and 2026 recruiting classes; as long as those classes don't lose flips en masse.

Which is no guarantee the worse this gets.