Recapping Hugh Freeze's spring interview with ESPN
Hugh Freeze welcomed ESPN college football reporter Heather Dinich inside the program this spring, as ESPN chronicled a couple of days in the life of Freeze and the Auburn football program.
You can read the entire story here.
What was said:
- First, can we point out that Dinich cited in the third paragraph of her story that Auburn has “five national titles.” Maybe it’s time Auburn start acknowledging more national titles? Considering the way college football rankings, BCS, and now playoffs have evolved, it’s fair to say crowning a champion hasn’t always been done well, and it seems fair to look back and claim titles where legitimate cases can be made.
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- The story centers around Auburn’s “gamble” to hire Freeze considering his past transgressions both on and off the football field. “You can’t fight it because I created it,” he said.
- The story quotes Freeze as saying he’s “so sick of rehashing it,” adding this: “It’s made me better. It’s made my wife and I better. It’s made, you know, everybody around me better. I think it made me a better coach because I share the real-life examples with our players and let me tell you when Coach got it wrong. Let me tell you when he got it right. Let me tell you why.”
- Freeze echoed a sentiment he’s mentioned before, saying he’s always thought Auburn is a place you can win big: “We just always felt like this is a place that you can win big, yet they haven’t done it. I’ve got a few years left in me before I say I’ve had enough, truthfully. I don’t want to do this until I’m 75 like my buddy Nick [Saban]. … I just think for the years I have left, I want the challenge of it.”
- When discussing recent circumstances around Auburn football, the report reminds us that, “Auburn paid out $31.2 million in dead money between Jan. 1, 2010, and Jan. 31, 2021 — more than any other school — and that didn’t include Harsin’s payment.”
- “When you take a job like this, you have to get in who really matters,” Freeze said, “and the boosters do matter, but I can’t be swayed or distracted by their opinions or their expectations. I have to stay within the walls of this building.”
- We’re reminded of the recent recruiting failures under Bryan Harsin, and under Gus Malzahn at times, too. Only four signees remain from Auburn’s 2021 class. “If we’re not in that top-10 range, they’ll probably be firing me in Year 4 or Year 5,” he said with a half-laugh, “but you know that coming in. … The administration, John Cohen has been awesome, President Roberts, I think everybody knows they’ve gotta give us a chance to get a couple top classes in here. If we don’t do that, and are able to still win it, it would be a miracle.”
- Dinich described a rough spring practice with receivers dropping passes and questionable quarterback play. Offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery commented, “both of us want to be on the same page, and open and honest about how we’re approaching it. The point that we got to was, he was bringing me here to be the playcaller, but also he’s always got an influence and a trump card and if there’s something he wants to run, that’s what we’re going to do. Understanding this is the first time he’s relinquished some of those duties, and that’s hard.”
- Defensive coordinator Ron Roberts is also quoted, clarifying where he expects his defense to rank nationally: “If we can get in that top 10 coming out of the gate, great, but the expectation is we’re at Auburn, and we need to be top 20 in the country in defense every year, and if we’re not, then we’re underachieving, so I gotta find a way to get that done.”
