Sports
Has Auburn Football debated firing Hugh Freeze? John Cohen explains.
AUBURN According to John Cohen, there is a constant evaluation of the people you work with. And for Auburn football, there was a lot to evaluate last fall.
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In Year 2 under Hugh Freeze, the program took an undeniable step back on the field. Now with an 11-14 record at Auburn, Freeze's Tigers were one fewer win in 2024 than in 2023. There was no bowl appearance, and that coincided with an 0-4 start in SEC play and home losses to Cal and Arkansas , who defeated the Tigers on the road a season earlier.
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So, with “many, many” factors for Auburn's athletic director to look at, did his football program's prospects ever become so bleak that he considered a change in leadership last fall?
“No, not at any time,” Cohen told the Montgomery Advertiser. “I work at an incredible university with incredible leadership, with (university president) Dr. Chris Roberts. I have an incredible board that I enjoy serving. There is constant communication in everything we do. Not just football, all of our sports. And I really believe that we are all on the same page. That doesn't mean you won't be disappointed. It doesn't mean that you say we can't do things better.
“Where there are top-10 recruiting classes, there is success to follow. Where there is a team of people who say, 'I will perform for this coach. I will work hard for this coach. I will help this coach in the recruiting process, 'Something special is happening.”
For Cohen, two aspects are most important when evaluating a head coach: “No. 1: Are the student-athletes committed to the head coach and giving him the best effort possible? Believing in the concepts of team and working very hard to build our program how good it can be?”
He said Freeze and his coaching staff did a “great” job managing “some very difficult times” on the field last fall.
“If a football team is really three or four games away from winning eight or nine games, it can get frustrating, especially for a young football team,” Cohen said. “Based on my observations, I feel that coach Freeze and his staff have done an excellent job of keeping the team and staff together.”
The second of these two factors is assessing the impact of disappointment apart from on-field improvements. He pointed to recruitment, before asking whether the lack of results had an impact on that.
“The answer to that is absolutely not,” Cohen said. “Not only did our staff achieve their second top-10 class in a row, not only did they have a transfer class in the top-five, but the people in that dressing room who had had a disappointing season believed enough in the staff from Hugh Freeze to help them attract some of the best talent from across the country.
“It takes a special effort when things don't go your way on the pitch, but you are still able to keep those two different concepts together. And that's why I'm confident we'll do that.” better.”
Cohen is no stranger to disappointing results on the field. Before coming to Auburn in October 2022 and leaving his position as Mississippi State athletic director, he was the university's head baseball coach for 17 years. Seven of his teams made NCAA Tournament appearances, but he missed another 10 in the postseason. Four of those teams even produced records below .500. But each of those four made a postseason appearance in at least the next three seasons.
Cohen knows what it takes to change a program's vision, but his own example is not the one he used to make his point.
He noted that coach Bruce Pearl won 15 games in his first season with Auburn Basketball. The next year he won 11. Texas football head coach Steve Sarkisian had 13 wins in his first two years with the LonghornsCohen explained. Since then, they are 33-10, and this season they were in the College Football Playoff semifinals.
Freeze and Auburn are not in uncharted waters, Cohen said, and he emphasized making decisions with as little emotion as possible, especially when Auburn's losses last season were limited.
“I know this can be said for a lot of programs: You're really three or four plays away,” Cohen said. “The pick-six against Oklahoma. We got the big lead against Missouri. One field goal was made. You just start adding it up, and we had a lot. Now, as a coach, you want to get to a point where you team is good enough to where you're not one play away. That's the direction Coach Freeze is going, I think.”
Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached by email at[email protected] or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter,@colerporter.
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