It’s just not going to work. The college football season hasn’t even begun, and the Hugh Freeze experiment at Auburn is all but over.
Just in case you weren’t convinced after two years of bad losses and one bizarre offseason, Auburn offensive coordinator Derrick Nix explained this week how his boss, Freeze, has laid out the play calling plan for the 2025 season.
Frankly, Freeze should be fired for this specific debacle, and this alone — much less the product on the field.
Ready for some strong, decisive Freeze leadership? Here we go.
Nix will handle first-down strategy and play calling. Quarterbacks coach Kent Austin gets third-down strategy and play calling.
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Who get’s second down, you ask? That would be Freeze, the guy who was hired three years ago because of – I know this is going to shock you – his track record of developing quarterbacks and calling plays.
Of course, Nix was quick to point out Freeze can overrule any call. Maybe even his own, for all we know.
“It depends on how the game is going,” Nix said.
Well, I can tell you how it’s going at Auburn — and it’s not good.
Let’s get beyond the 11-14 record in two seasons, and the 5-11 record in SEC games. Or the four-game losing streaks in each of his two seasons.
Let’s overlook, for a moment, that those two rip-roaring seasons included losses to New Mexico State, Maryland, California, Vanderbilt and Arkansas. Or that Freeze is winless in five games against rivals Alabama, Georgia and LSU.
Because this can’t be said enough: Freeze has failed spectacularly with the very thing that got him the job in the first place.
In two seasons, Freeze’s offenses have been 12th and 11th in the SEC in points per game, and his quarterbacks have combined to throw 26 interceptions.
Knowing all of this heading into a crossroads third season, and knowing he needed a tough and talented quarterback who could protect the ball, Freeze signed benched Oklahoma starter Jackson Arnold from the transfer portal.
Then told his defense – the one good thing in Freeze’s two seasons on The Plains – to ease up on his new quarterback so he leaves practice feeling confident.
I’m not kidding.
If that’s not bad enough, Auburn begins this critical season for Freeze on the road against Baylor, which won six of seven games to finish 2024.
“Yes,” Freeze said earlier this spring, almost beaming when he explained about the defense easing up on Arnold, who didn’t exactly set the game ablaze at Oklahoma last season before getting benched in mid-September. “I used to be very adamant that the No.1 priority of practice is for our quarterback to leave that field confident. I’m going back to that this year.”
Lovely.
Just to recap this bumbling, fumbling philosophical train wreck of an offseason: Freeze badly needed an efficient and proficient quarterback, and took a flier on a former five-star recruit. Then told his defense hands off.
This thing is going to fail on multiple levels.
Make no mistake, Arnold last year looked a whole lot like Auburn’s quarterbacks in 2023-24. In fact, when these two SEC giants of 2024 (Auburn and OU were a combined 4-12 in SEC games) played last year, Oklahoma scored 17 points in the fourth quarter to win a horrifically ugly game that set back tackle football for decades.
And just in case you’re wondering: Arnold was a healthy scratch for that game.
So Freeze spends NIL dollars on Arnold, tells his defense to lay off, and then rolls into the annual A-Day spring game without Arnold — who was nursing a hamstring injury.
Meanwhile, after landing the nation’s No. 6 recruiting class in 2025, Freeze’s 2026 class is 14th out of 16 in the SEC, according to the 247Sports recruiting composite.
If all that doesn’t give you those Toomer’s Corner feels, what will?
Look, I’m willing to give Arnold the benefit of the doubt, a pass of sorts from his first season as a starter that was severely stunted by injuries at wide receiver and offensive line. He never really had a chance.
But Auburn could have the best wide receiver combination in the nation (Cam Coleman and Eric Singleton Jr.), and its offensive line is miles ahead of where Oklahoma was last season. The defense should be among the top three, if not the best, in the SEC.
By all accounts, this should be a breakout season for Auburn.— which hasn’t won more than six games in a season since 2019.
Instead there’s Freeze, declaring in May that reaching bowl eligibility is a “goal” for Auburn. He later clarified that bowl eligibility, which Auburn hasn’t earned in his first two seasons, was the minimum expectation.
Two moths later at SEC media days, he laid out this whopper: Auburn has the roster and the potential to reach the College Football Playoff.
As long as the three offensive play callers are on the same page, anyway.
“I like our squad, I like the makeup,” Freeze said. “We believe this team’s potential is limitless.”
Yeah, this thing isn’t going to work.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hugh Freeze, Auburn experiment headed for bizarre SEC ending
