Hugh Freeze buyout: What Auburn owes fired head coach
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Hugh Freeze’s return to the SEC didn’t even last 3 seasons. The Auburn head coach was fired on Sunday, one day after a 10-3 loss to Kentucky at Jordan-Hare Stadium dropped the Tigers to 4-5.
After Bryan Harsin was dismissed after just 21 games and a 9-12 record, including a 4-9 mark in SEC play, Auburn turned to Freeze in an attempt to resurrect a program that had fallen far behind its conference peers.
That didn’t happen. The Tigers showed no discernible improvement under the former Ole Miss head coach, going 6-7 in 2023 and 5-7 in 2024. With Vanderbilt and Alabama among their remaining opponents, missing a bowl for a second straight year and a third time in four seasons looks extremely likely for a program that had strung together 9 straight bowl appearances from 2013 to 2021, including a national championship game appearance in 2013.
Hugh Freeze buyout details
Per ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Auburn will owe Hugh Freeze $15.8 million. It’s not as sizable as Brian Kelly’s $53 million-plus buyout (that number is being negotiated down), but it’s not a small amount of money, either.
As far as his contract is concerned, Freeze was set to make just over $6.734 million in 2025. That made him the 13th-highest-paid coach in the country.
Freeze’s record with Auburn was 15-19. In SEC play, he was just 6-16.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
