Steve Spurrier reacts to heavy criticism around Hugh Freeze for golfing: 'He doesn't win ball games'

On June 24, AL.com reported that Hugh Freeze had played golf 10 times in June alone, and at least 20 times during the calendar year. Considering Auburn went 5-7 last season, Tigers fans weren’t happy to hear Freeze was spending time on the links instead of the recruiting trail.

For reference, South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer had the second-most recorded scores in June with three. On Monday’s episode of Another Dooley Noted Podcast, former Florida head coach Steve Spurrier weighed in on Freeze’s golfing habits.

“He doesn’t win ball games,” Spurrier said. “I think he went 5-7 last year, is that correct? Yeah, he’s got to do better than that at Auburn. But they have good players there, but they’re in sort of a little rut. But they could come out of it.

“This SEC is maybe a little tougher than it was back in the old days. But again, everybody’s got a chance. There’s 16 teams and they just got to go one at a time.”

Spurrier has room to talk. In 23 seasons as a head coach in the SEC, he only ever posted a losing record once. In two years at Auburn, Freeze has already posted more losing campaigns.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Auburn is doomed moving forward. The Tigers had a solid offseason, reeling in the No. 6 class in On3’s 2025 Team Transfer Portal Rankings. Nonetheless, fans won’t be happy with Freeze until his offseason work shows up in the win column.

Freeze isn’t oblivious to this fact. During an appearance on See Ball Get Ball — David Pollack’s podcast — Freeze addressed his golf habits.

“Everybody seems to like to talk about my golf game,” Freeze said. “… I do love golf. I enjoy playing, but what people don’t realize is, I assure you that I never missed a camp day or a recruiting day but if camp got over at 3 o’clock one day, and Jill (Freeze’s wife) and I go out at 4:30, we absolutely might do that.

“I’m not apologizing for that part of it. But my focus is 100% on getting Auburn in that win column this fall. And I do think the biggest thing that’s causing most of it is the recruiting rankings right now, because we’ve been top 10 my two years here in recruiting, and currently we’re not.”

Thankfully for Hugh Freeze, Spurrier has a simple solution to make Auburn fans stop complaining about Freeze’s golf game. Win more.

“They’re upset that he’s not winning enough games,” Spurrier said. “If he was 9-4 last year, they wouldn’t be worried about his golf. So anyway, that that goes hand in hand.”