Pete Thamel explains why Hugh Freeze might not be top candidate in Auburn coaching search

Auburn head coach Brian Harsin was fired Monday, and very quickly buzz has already circulated over who will be the Tiger’s 28th head coach. One name that has already been thrown into the mix is former Ole Miss and current Liberty head coach Hough Freeze, and college football insider Pete Thamel broke down his chances of getting the job on The Paul Finebaum Show.

“I think Hugh Freeze is a candidate there. I don’t think whatever contract he just agreed to would have been agreed to if it was going to box him out of that job,” Thamel said.

Freeze is in his fourth season at the helm for Liberty, where they currently sit with a 7-1 record, and he has led them to three straight bowl wins. Freeze also has SEC coaching experience, coaching for Ole Miss for four seasons.

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His stint at Ole Miss adds valuable experience to his resume for the Auburn head coaching job, but is also clouded by various recruiting violations, academic violations, and Freeze violating the morals clause of his contract which led to his resignation. During this time, Auburn’s newly hired athletic director John Cohen was at Mississippi State as their head baseball coach, who would eventually become their athletic director in 2016.

“You do have to understand, though, there are some dynamics that come into play in the SEC. John Cohen was at Mississippi State as the baseball coach and then later as the athletic director during a particularly contentious time at Ole Miss. I don’t have to remind you about lawsuits and Leo Lewis and mud fighting,” Thamel explained. “There were just years and years of disagreements between those two schools.”

Cohen may be familiar with Freeze for the wrong reasons, but time will surely tell who he and the Auburn higher-ups decide to hire as their next head coach to replace Harsin.

“Certainly, John Cohen is going to go hire the best coach. If he thinks that’s Hugh Freeze, he will. But he certainly saw up close, from just a few miles down the road, the dysfunction that followed Hugh Freeze’s tenure at Ole Miss,” Thamel said.

Auburn has not hesitated to already make some additional coaching changes along with Harsin, firing two additional assistant coaches and four off-field staffers Monday according to Auburn Live’s Keith Niebuhr. Auburn Live’s Justin Hokanson also reported that running backs coach and former Tiger player Carnell Williams has been named the team’s interim head coach for the time being, as they have four games remaining on their schedule this season.