Hugh Freeze reveals if he expected to be back in SEC after Ole Miss resignation

After more than a half-decade away from SEC Media Days, Hugh Freeze is back. The new Auburn head coach and former Ole Miss head coach was back taking questions from the collective media Tuesday.

The first question he got was about his journey to get back to that point. Freeze was asked whether he ever imaged being back in the SEC after resigning from the Rebels.

“When the the the ending at Ole Miss occurred, it was hard to truthfully process would you ever get that opportunity again,” Freeze said. “I would have to say at that point, no. But as time passes and things tend to settle back in and you work through — I tell people all the time. I think that one of the greatest judges of people and our players included and the people I come in contact with are when you experience disappointment, failure, whether it was of your own doing or whether it was circumstances that come into your life like Luke Deal, who’s with us today, he lost his father while while being at Auburn. Those are are tough circumstances. But how a person responds to those and reacts to those I think probably tells you more about them then the successes do.”

Freeze resigned in July 2017 from his head coaching job with Ole Miss following multiple scandals within the program. The Mississippi native was originally hired before the 2012 season and led the team to a 39–25 record over five campaigns.

He spent the next two seasons out of coaching before returning to the sport in 2019 as the head coach of Liberty.

He found immediate success with the Flames. In his four seasons with the program, the team won at least eight games all four years and won all three bowl games he coached the team in.

It was during this time with Liberty when he actually started to believe that he might be able to coach again in the SEC.

“I would be less than truthful with you if after we started having success at Liberty, particularly with it just going FBS and us being able to beat the likes of Arkansas and BYU and Virginia Tech and Syracuse and playing close with every Power Five that we played, did the thoughts start creeping in your mind that that certain opportunities might present themselves again?” Freeze said. “Yes — at that point. But not prior to that point did they enter my mind.”