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Hugh Freeze hire: Auburn took ‘extensive’ look into coach’s past, per report
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Hugh Freeze’s hiring was sure to create a firestorm among Auburn fans, SEC fans and college football fans. So AU did its homework on Freeze, some extensive homework in fact, according to a new report.
According to SI.com’s Ross Dellenger, the school courted the controversial former Ole Miss coach for several weeks. And according to sources, there was a delay in Auburn hiring Freeze over the past 3 days because the school was doing “extensive exploration” into Freeze’s checkered past.
Auburn has spent weeks courting Freeze. A delay in the hire over the last three days was rooted in an extensive exploration into Freeze’s past, sources tell @SInow.
More details on the search, Freeze’s past and a future of alignment at Auburn – https://t.co/ZA2jYsOk8B
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) November 28, 2022
The details to Freeze’s contract at Auburn are not clear. But Auburn is expected to owe Liberty roughly $3 million in buyout money for hiring Freeze away from the Virginia school, a source told SI.
The controversy surrounding Freeze’s off-the-field issues at Ole Miss prevented many programs from hiring him sooner. While he was the head coach in Oxford, the Rebels were sanctioned for breaking NCAA rules and Freeze was involved in an extramarital scandal during the summer of 2017.
By that time, Freeze was long gone from Ole Miss, coaching his final season in 2016 before his unceremonious era ended in Oxford.
Despite the expected pushback, or firestorm, new Auburn athletic director John Cohen is hiring a proven winner on the field and someone very familiar with the SEC.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
