Auburn fires Hugh Freeze but the problems started long before him and must be fixed

 

AUBURN — Most of us went back in time early Sunday morning when Daylight Savings Time ended. Auburn, too, turned the clock back to the days of Pat Dye and Shug Jordan — when defense and the kicking game were enough to win and you were seen on TV once or twice a year.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, millions of people saw the weekly bleeding of a program and a coach who had no answers. The ones who showed up at Jordan-Hare Stadium and stayed for the miserable duration did have an answer after Saturday night’s 10-3 loss to Kentucky — they booed Hugh Freeze off the field and chanted for his firing. As he approached the tunnel to the locker room, he had the look of a man being led to the guillotine.

The vast majority of Auburn fans got their wish on Sunday when Freeze was dismissed after three seasons and the coach, who is battling prostate cancer and seemed drained of any energy, nonchalantly accepted the derision and the unstated looming decision in the aftermath of the defeat.

“We all know that when we sign up for this and we accept what comes with it,” he said.

Jordan once famously admonished Auburn fans for such behavior, saying: “Auburn people don’t do that.” But they do nowadays, when millions of dollars are being donated and hundreds are being paid for a single seat to watch an offense that repeatedly looked as if it had stepped on a rusty nail.

Freeze took a swig of water at the beginning of the postgame briefing beneath the stands and said he understood.

“I wish I could ask for patience but you’re probably not getting patience from them because they want to see a better product on the field,” he said. “There are zero excuses of how poorly we’re playing. It’s unacceptable the way we’re playing … I just know we’re so dang close.”

Freeze was closer to being unemployed after falling to a Wildcats team that had lost 10 straight SEC games. Auburn Athletic Director John Cohen never issued a watertight endorsement of Freeze and when asked about it recently, Cohen gave a nonsensical tale about expecting his car to start when he turns the key — which I suppose is better than it blowing up Cosa Nostra style.

“It’s sickening that we haven’t delivered,” Freeze said. “No one wants to do that more than I.”

In a moment of candor, and with the boos still buzzing in his ears, Freeze acknowledged he had failed and feared his players had no confidence in him.

“I’m concerned about that after every loss in today’s time,” he said. “I told the kids they can hold their heads high. They deserve better results than we’ve gotten this year. It’s sickening and frustrating and just heartbreaking. … My job is to get this team ready to play and win games and we have failed to do that this year.”

 

In need of a QB

 

Freeze was 6-16 in the SEC and 2-10 in games decided by a touchdown or less. In three years, he never had a quarterback who could provide explosive plays — unless it was a recruit visiting the game (and Saraland’s Jamison Roberts was on the sideline Saturday night).

With Freeze’s firing, the Tigers are apt to lose a lot of players in the transfer portal unless a new coach is hired who can score points and avoid games like Saturday night’s that was reminiscent of 1925, not 2025. The leather helmets were missing but that’s not all. Back when Jordan and Dye reigned on the Plains, men were men, mental steel was forged daily, Sullivan and Beasley and Bo frolicked across the land and Auburn put the fear of God in people at the sight of those blue jerseys, as Dye once said.

But when the only person scoring points for you is courageously wearing an ostomy bag, they should honor him by rolling Toomer’s Corner just for kicking field goals. Alex McPherson has kicked seven in the last two games, including a 27-yarder at the end of the first half Saturday night to tie it 3-3 — and it took an interception to make that happen.

Tigers fans are ready to swap McPherson’s threes for threes inside Neville Arena. A roar welled up from the crowd in the third quarter when, in an effort to sell tickets, the public-address announcer proclaimed: “It’s officially basketball season on the Plains!”

It’s astonishing that Auburn is 1-5 in the SEC with a run defense that is the program’s best since Dye’s great 1988 team. But even Dye’s wishbone offenses had better passing games. Quarterbacks Ashton Daniels and Jackson Arnold were booed equally Saturday night in between being sacked seven times — their offensive line has now allowed 37 sacks, the most in the nation. They combined to complete just 15 of 31 passes for 123 yards. Daniels threw so many away to the sidelines that his teammates were ducking for cover.

“We took a pretty good kicking,” Freeze said.

 

More wasted money

 

When a black labrador ran onto the field from the Tigers’ sideline to retrieve a kicking tee at the end of the first half, Freeze may have contemplated strapping the football on the dog to get some good broken-field running. The SEC officials, who fell blind in two of Auburn’s losses, might not have noticed.

The metaphorical black dog was barking along with the fans, who found out Sunday the powers that be were listening. The scoreboard at Jordan-Hare Stadium kept touting the school’s Heisman Trophy winners (3), national championships (9), SEC championships (15) and All-Americans (81) but didn’t display the number 52 — as in the $52 million combined buyout total for Gus Malzahn, Bryan Harsin and Freeze.

Auburn is second only to the U.S. government in wasting money — that $52 million would fund the federal budget for roughly 40 minutes but would also pay for a top-tier coach and a quarterback. Freeze’s firing continues a vicious cycle of mismanagement by the Auburn administration, which must stop paying people not to coach at their school.

 

Back to the Future

 

Freeze cannot be fully blamed for this unsightly mess. The decline started when Auburn tried to secretly replace Tommy Tuberville with that bastion of decency, Bobby Petrino, and continued through Gene Chizik, Malzahn and Harsin’s disastrous hiring.

Writing a check for $15 million to pay off Freeze and admit yet another mistake should be galling to Tigers fans, who have suffered through the school’s past ghastly coaching decisions.

Freeze is gone but Auburn still doesn’t have a functioning quarterback. And who of any substance will want to take his place long term in a job that has fallen into the middle of the SEC at best? Maybe an NFL assistant who understands talent evaluation and development, personnel turnover in today’s game and negotiating contracts with players — in other words, the pro model, because the SEC is semi-pro football with no loyalty.

Jimmy Rane — whose YellaWood logo is in two places on Pat Dye Field and whose riches unlock the doors of influence on the Plains — could be the owner of the closest thing to an NFL franchise in the state.

Freeze, who inherited no offensive linemen when he followed Harsin, markedly improved the Tigers’ talent level, minus a quarterback. But with Vanderbilt and Alabama left on the SEC schedule, it is a fantasy to believe there is a magic DeLorean hovering over the Plains to transport Auburn to a happy ending this season, as Marty McFly and Doc Brown enjoyed in the debut of “Back to the Future” 40 years ago. In contrast, the Tigers are riding a mule-drawn hay wagon, less the weight of one head coach.