Tag: Hugh Freeze

ESPN insider describes the perfect hire for Auburn

There are several coaches that fit the bill of the “ideal” candidate for Auburn says one ESPN expert.

By now, I’m sure that you have seen the many head coaching possibilities for Auburn Football. One target has even shared his thoughts on coaching at a place like Auburn.

But, how many logical takes concerning each candidate have you heard? One ESPN insider recently shared his take on the Auburn job publically.

Chris Low of ESPN was a guest on a recent episode of the Paul Finebaum Show, where he provided a description of who would be the best candidate for the position, which was basically the opposite of what [autotag]Bryan Harsin[/autotag] brought to the table.

“I think if you’re Auburn, you want someone who’s coached in the SEC, who’s recruited in the SEC, who’s not afraid to go toe-to-toe and not afraid to be a bite-back kind of coach when you’ve got Kirby Smart on one side and Nick Saban on the other,” Low said during an appearance on the Paul Finebaum show. “But you’d better bring somebody in there who understands Auburn, who gets Auburn, who’s not afraid to sort of reach out to some of those people, but not let them come in and run the show. Sometimes, that’s a very delicate balance.”

He then went on to mention that Ole Miss head coach [autotag]Lane Kiffin[/autotag], Jackson State head coach [autotag]Deion Sanders[/autotag], as well as Liberty head coach [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag] seem to fit the mold of “perfect candidate” for the Auburn job. However, he entertains the notion that there is a wild card prospect that also fits the description.

“Somebody else that I think will be in that hunt is Mark Stoops,” Low said. “It’s not been a great year for Mark this year, but his body of work at Kentucky and what he’s done, the way he’s built that program from the ground up, and the way he’s developed players. He’s coached, he’s recruited in the SEC. I think he checks that box.”

Low revealed one other target that Auburn should take a look at, and he’s located on the west coast.

“I hate to do this to Oregon fans, but do they call Dan Lanning?” Low said. “Oregon’s had all these guys who have been one-and-done at Oregon, but Lanning’s background — having coached in the SEC, coached under Kirby Smart. I think there’s a lot of guys out there, again, if you’re John Cohen, you’re going to look at.”

As Auburn heads into its final four games of the regular season, stay tuned to Auburn Wire for the latest news surrounding the Tigers’ head coaching search.

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Coaching search: How to watch Auburn Football head coaching candidates this weekend

Is scouting the future in your weekend plans? Here is a guide for how to watch games involving potential Auburn head coaching candidates this Saturday.

This week has been a whirlwind for Auburn Football.

The news of [autotag]Bryan Harsin[/autotag]’s firing broke Monday morning, and interim head coach [autotag]Carnell Williams[/autotag] worked long hours this week in order to put a perfect gameplan together for the Tigers’ game at Mississippi State on Saturday night.

There is no doubt that Williams will get his chance to audition for the vacant position, but there are plenty of potential candidates to watch out for as well.

Auburn fans have read reports all week that profile each possible candidate. Some names make sense, while some seem farfetched. No matter how popular or how obscure a possible target can be, it does not hurt to take a deeper look at what each candidate brings to the table.

For Auburn fans that are looking for a chance to thoroughly examine each possible candidate, you have come to the right place.

Auburn Wire has made a list of every coach that has been mentioned in some sort of fashion as a target for the Auburn opening and has created a guide of their week ten schedule in an effort to allow you the opportunity to watch them coach with your own eyes.

Are you wanting more information on a lesser-known name? Do you need to prove your point to a fellow college football fan? Check out the list below to make sure that you do not miss an opportunity to watch your favorite candidate coach live on Saturday:

Hugh Freeze has ‘a list in mind’ of programs he would listen to

Does Auburn fit Hugh Freeze’s criteria for programs that he would entertain a call from?

It is no secret that up-and-coming coaches from small programs would entertain the notion of speaking to larger institutions if the timing is right.

Jackson State head coach [autotag]Deion Sanders[/autotag] admitted in a recent episode of 60 Minutes that he would be willing to listen to an athletic director of a Power Five program if the said program were interested in Sanders leading its’ program.

“I’m gonna have to entertain it,” Sanders said in the interview. “Yes, I’m gonna have to entertain it. Straight up. I would be a fool not to.”

Not only has Sanders been vocal about the possibility of taking a step forward in his coaching career, but it also appears that Liberty head coach [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag] has joined the movement.

Freeze was a recent guest on the Aaron Torres Podcast, where the possibility of leaving Liberty for a Power Five opportunity was one of the topics discussed.

In the interview with FOX Sports’ Aaron Torres, Freeze says that there are only a small number of programs that he would listen to if the call were to come.

“I don’t know that there will ever be a time where I leave. But if it does, it would be in Jill (Hugh’s wife) and my mind there is only a few that really would say, ‘we really want to listen to that.’ Because it fits our culture, it fits our location in mind,” Freeze said. “We are a small, college-town family. I’m not a big-city guy, I don’t belong there. If that select few, I do have a list in mind that if they ever were to have an interest, it would be something that we certainly would listen to.”

Out of all the current Power Five openings, Auburn appears to fit his criteria the most. Is Freeze interested in returning to the SEC West? He did not say for sure, as he has found a place that he considers special in Lynchburg at Liberty University.

“I have no idea that if we even listen, that we would want to leave (Lynchburg), it is such a good place on the mountain,” Freeze said. “But that is kind of how we will go about it. But there is very few that we would even take the calls from.”

Freeze has led Liberty to a 7-1 record this season, with its lone loss coming to No. 19 Wake Forest on Sept. 17 in Winston-Salem. This week, Freeze leads the Flames to Arkansas to face the Razorbacks. Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT on Saturday afternoon.

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Auburn Candidates 2.0: A few new contenders to check out

Spitballing a few more candidates along with some top contenders for the Auburn head coaching vacancy.

Right now the talk of the town isn’t the game against Mississippi State on Saturday, everyone seems more focused on who will be the next head coach.

The three names you hear most are Lane Kiffin, Deion Sanders, and Hugh Freeze. One shouldn’t expect that list to change anytime soon but who are some of the under-the-radar candidates? Who are some of the off-the-wall names that could grab your attention?

There are plenty of coaches with Auburn ties that could garner some attention. Here is the next version of our candidates’ list where we spitball another group of 10 names. Some you will recognize from our 1.0 list mixed in with some new contenders.

Is Hugh Freeze Auburn Football’s best ‘long-term’ option?

If Auburn Football wants longevity out of its next head coach, Liberty’s Hugh Freeze may be the guy says one ESPN insider.

Many local and national media members have tabbed their projected front-runner for the vacant head coaching job at Auburn, which is considered to be the top job out of the current openings around the Power Five level of College Football.

The top names mentioned to this point are Ole Miss’ [autotag]Lane Kiffin[/autotag] and Jackson State’s [autotag]Deion Sanders[/autotag]. However, there is another coach with ties to the Magnolia State that has the attention of one ESPN college football analyst.

ESPN’s Adam Rittenburg recently ranked the current openings around college football, placing Auburn at the top spot. He also shared his top candidate to watch for the open position, where he mentioned [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag], the former Ole Miss head coach who is currently leading the football program at Liberty.

Rittenburg feels that Freeze would be a phenomenal recruiter, and utilize NIL to his advantage, which would allow him to stay at Auburn for the “long run.”

Although Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin is viewed as the frontrunner for the Auburn job, Freeze might be the better fit for the long run. Freeze embraces the recruiting piece and would use Auburn’s NIL program to his advantage. He has a known track record of producing exciting and effective offenses, first at Ole Miss and now at Liberty. Before Liberty, Freeze had spent his entire career in the SEC footprint. He has the personality to connect with Auburn fans and possibly bring together the power brokers around the program. His new contract at Liberty likely wouldn’t prevent a move to Auburn. Freeze was unhirable in the SEC for a while after his downfall at Ole Miss, but more than five years after his resignation, a return makes more sense.

The new contract that Rittenburg mentions above is referring to the extension that Freeze signed with Liberty on Oct. 28. The contract is set to expire in 2030, and will pay Freeze $5 million per season. In three seasons at Liberty,  Freeze has won 33 games, and has led the Flames to a 7-1 record in 2022.

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Is Hugh Freeze Auburn Football’s best ‘long term’ option?

If Auburn Football wants longevity out of its next head coach, Liberty’s Hugh Freeze may be the guy says one ESPN insider.

Many local and national media members have tabbed their projected front-runner for the vacant head coaching job at Auburn, which is considered to be the top job out of the current openings around the Power Five level of College Football.

The top names mentioned to this point are Ole Miss’ [autotag]Lane Kiffin[/autotag] and Jackson State’s [autotag]Deion Sanders[/autotag]. However, there is another coach with ties to the Magnolia State that has the attention of one ESPN college football analyst.

ESPN’s Adam Rittenburg recently ranked the current openings around college football, placing Auburn at the top spot. He also shared his top candidate to watch for the open position, where he mentioned [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag], the former Ole Miss head coach who is currently leading the football program at Liberty.

Rittenburg feels that Freeze would be a phenomenal recruiter, and utilize NIL to his advantage, which would allow him to stay at Auburn for the “long run.”

Although Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin is viewed as the frontrunner for the Auburn job, Freeze might be the better fit for the long run. Freeze embraces the recruiting piece and would use Auburn’s NIL program to his advantage. He has a known track record of producing exciting and effective offenses, first at Ole Miss and now at Liberty. Before Liberty, Freeze had spent his entire career in the SEC footprint. He has the personality to connect with Auburn fans and possibly bring together the power brokers around the program. His new contract at Liberty likely wouldn’t prevent a move to Auburn. Freeze was unhirable in the SEC for a while after his downfall at Ole Miss, but more than five years after his resignation, a return makes more sense.

The new contract that Rittenburg mentions above is referring to the extension that Freeze signed with Liberty on Oct. 28. The contract is set to expire in 2030, and will pay Freeze $5 million per season. In three seasons at Liberty,  Freeze has won 33 games, and has led the Flames to a 7-1 record in 2022.

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CBS Sports analyst lists familiar name as potential head coaching candidate

A Pac-12 offensive coordinator with Auburn ties is seen as a “risk-taking” candidate.

Auburn fans can expect to see many names floating around as possible replacements for former head coach [autotag]Bryan Harsin[/autotag].

The most popular names surrounding the opening are Ole Miss’ [autotag]Lane Kiffin[/autotag], Liberty’s [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag], Jackson State’s [autotag]Deion Sanders[/autotag], and Baylor offensive coordinator [autotag]Jeff Grimes[/autotag].

When listing his potential candidates for the Auburn vacancy, Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports mentioned the above names, but also went out of the box by mentioning several unique names. One, in particular, has a tie to Auburn from its’ previous administration.

Kenny Dillingham, who served as offensive coordinator under Gus Malzahn during the 2018 season, is currently leading Oregon‘s high-powered offense with former Auburn quarterback [autotag]Bo Nix[/autotag] serving as the quarterback in his system. Dodd lists Dillingham as a name to watch despite his age (he is only 32 years old). Dodd says that he may be worth the risk if that is the route that Auburn chooses to take.

If you want to take a chance, this is your guy. In 2019, as a 29-year-old, Dillingham was the offensive coordinator for Gus Malzahn’s last good team at Auburn. The Tigers won nine games, beat three top 20 teams (including Alabama) and averaged 33 points a game. Dillingham birthed the Bo Nix era (16 touchdowns as a freshman). The two reunited at Oregon where Nix has matured with the Ducks as a fringe Heisman Trophy contender. There’s plenty to like there for Auburn if they want to go extremely young.

After suffering a devastating loss to Georgia to open the season, Oregon has won eight straight games and is ranked No. 8 in the initial College Football Playoff ranking. Dillingham has led the Ducks offense to a No. 3 ranking in overall offensive yards per game, averaging 514 yards per contest.

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Best case scenario: Auburn Wire staff reveals their pick for Auburn’s ‘home run hire’

The staff at Auburn Wire shares their thoughts on who would be the best fit to lead Auburn’s football program.

After weeks of speculation, Auburn University finally made the move to fire Bryan Harsin after spending a season and a half on the Plains.

Now, here comes the fun part.

There is no official timetable for Auburn to hire its next head coach, but it is assumed that a hire will not be made until sometime after the conclusion of the regular season on Nov. 28. Until then, there will be plenty of speculation as to who will take over the vacant role of the SEC’s first head coach opening.

The staff here at Auburn Wire obviously has no say as to who accepts the job, but we like to have fun and will take advantage of the opportunity to share our thoughts on potential head coaching candidates.

Who are our picks for the job? Below, you will find a list of our top three targets, as well as our “home run” pick.

Enjoy our picks for Auburn’s “home run hire.”

Hugh Freeze and Liberty are stuck with each other, saving your SEC team from a terrible mistake

They deserve each other.

Liberty University seemingly locked up Hugh Freeze for the long term, announcing Friday they’ve extended the Flames’ fourth-year coach through 2030.

Liberty’s a private school, so the exact figures of Freeze’s deal aren’t clear. Per ESPN’s Pete Thamel, it’s a fully guaranteed contract that will pay him just shy of $5 million per year. That would put him near the middle of the pack compared to SEC salaries and make him the highest-paid coach in the Group of Five when Cincinnati joins the Big 12 next season.

It also means we can hopefully put to rest any discussions of Freeze’s return to the SEC for the disgraced former Ole Miss coach, which seem to pop up every time a middle-of-the-road SEC job opens.

If you’re unfamiliar with Freeze — first, I envy you — he led the Rebels to two wins over Alabama and a top-10 finish in 2015 during his tenure. He also oversaw some of the most blatant NCAA recruiting violations we’ve seen in the modern era which overshadowed the program years after he resigned.

Despite the situation he put the university in, those investigations didn’t ultimately spell his downfall. In July 2017, Freeze resigned under duress after a Mississippi State fan discovered he had used a university-issued cell phone to contact an escort service several times.

After a few years of laying low, he reemerged at Liberty, an evangelical university in Lynchburg, Virginia, which holds its students to a strict honor code — despite having no qualms about hiring Freeze. (It shouldn’t be ignored, either, that athletic director Ian McCaw — who hired Freeze at Liberty and extended him Friday — landed in Lynchburg after resigning from the same role at Baylor in 2016 in the wake of the school’s horrific sexual assault scandal.)

Despite leaving an SEC program in ruins five years ago, it hasn’t stopped Freeze’s name from being thrown around regarding openings at programs like Auburn, Tennessee and more. Still, you can’t deny he seems genuinely happy at Liberty, and clearly they’re happy with him. Maybe this ridiculous extension and prohibitive buyout by Group of Five standards will be enough for SEC (and other Power Five programs) to leave him where he belongs.

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Hugh Freeze agrees to extension with Liberty

Many Power Five programs will have to go back to the drawing board now that a top target is off of the table.

A potential candidate for several Power Five coaching jobs is now off the table.

According to a report by ESPN, former Ole Miss head coach [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag] has agreed to a contract extension with Liberty. The extension will keep Freeze as the head coach of the Flames football program until the 2030 season.

Pete Thamel of ESPN was the first to report the news. He reports that Freeze has signed an 8-year extension that fully guarantees that he will make just under $5 million per season.

Director of Athletics for Liberty, Ian McCaw, is pleased with what Freeze has done with the program in three seasons, and is excited about what he brings to the future of the program.

“We are grateful for Coach Freeze’s outstanding leadership of Liberty Football and the positive influence he has on our student-athletes,” McCaw said in a statement. “Liberty Football is realizing the vision that was cast for it decades ago and we are excited that Coach Freeze will lead the program into the future.”

Since taking over the program at Liberty in 2019, he has led the Flames to 33 wins, which includes a current record of 7-1. Liberty has earned wins over BYU, UAB, and Southern Miss to this point in the season, with their only loss being a 37-36 decision to No. 10 Wake Forest.

Freeze was seen as a potential candidate to fill the needs of several Power Five openings, but more so for the possible opening at Auburn. Now that Freeze is tied to a longer contract with Liberty, Auburn will need to look elsewhere if they plan to move on from [autotag]Bryan Harsin[/autotag] at the end of the season.

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