Hugh Freeze says SEC officials in Auburn scrimmage were flag happy

Welcome back to the SEC, Hugh Freeze. On Saturday, the Auburn head coach discussed his frustration with the SEC referees during Auburn’s intrasquad scrimmage.

“Good God. We had SEC officials today and, I got to watch the film,” Freeze said. “I don’t know if [it was because] they hadn’t done anything in a year, they were flag happy. I got to look and see all these holds and pass interferences.”

Freeze isn’t known for his team’s lack of penalties. Under Freeze last season, Liberty averaged 53.54 penalty yards per outing. Further, the team averaged 6.15 penalties per game. Despite the team’s uphill battles with penalties, Freeze led them to success.

In his four seasons with the program, the Flames went 34-15. While Auburn hasn’t seen that level of success in several seasons, Freeze aims on returning the Tigers to their former glory. Despite Freeze’s initial gripes with his team’s penalties, he claims it isn’t all bad.

“It wasn’t many procedural things or alignment. It was all, we got a hold here or we got a block below the waist here or we got pass interference here,” Freeze said. “We got to clean those things up because you’d have a hard time today. We had some really explosive runs called back for holds.”

Hugh Freeze hopes to instill fun at Auburn

Those issues should be relatively simple fixes. Although Freeze wants his players to reach their potential, he wants them to enjoy their time at Auburn above all else.

“Part of being the Auburn experience and being an Auburn man is the fact that I think this place has done a nice job — and I want to continue it — of young men that have gone through our program, that 10 to 15 to 20 years (later) still have this affection for this place because of the experience that we had here,”
Freeze said earlier this month. “That experience is much more than just the 12 opportunities you have in a fall, so I hope that they will continue to say, ‘Man, coach is positive. He has a good vibe about him. He’s fun to be around even when it’s stressful and difficult.’

“I know we live in a world that wants us to win every game,” Freeze said. “That’s probably not reality, that you’re going to win every game. Very few do, if you look at the culture of our sport. Very few win them all. We want to and we’re certainly going to try.”

Fans won’t have to wait long to see Freeze’s debut at Auburn. The Tigers will take on UMass in their season opener on Sept. 2.