There are certain immutable facts on this vast playground we call college football.
Yes, Notre Dame will at some point every season be ridiculously overrated. Yes, Ohio State mouth-breathers will want Ryan Day fired sooner than later. Yes, Lane Kiffin will both win a game in 2025 that Ole Miss had no business winning and then lose a game in 2025 that the Rebels had no business losing.
Add to those this undeniable, irrefutable fact: Auburn will fire Hugh Freeze before we reach 2026.
(Cue the Crayola-scrawled griping from Lee County…)
Of course, we aren’t the first outlet to let you know that the plush leather office chair beneath Freeze’s new Nike warmup pants are currently at par-boil. We are setting the hypothetical “Hugh Freeze Gets Fired Odds” -1000. It’s gonna happen.
Why? Let’s explore…
It isn’t so much that Freeze is an awful coach, though there could certainly be a capable case made for Freeze’s relative lack of Xs and Os chops, too. But we all know that success in intercollegiate American tackle football revolves around recruiting… and Freeze hasn’t managed to be very good at that since the NCAA practically set up a field office in Oxford.
Although Auburn’s ‘crootin’ has simmered around the top 10 for the past few years under Freeze (7th at On3 in 2024 and in 2025), the 2026 class is, ahem, less than spectacular. After dipping to 70th nationally, the Tigers are currently ranked No. 56 and are in the same general atmosphere as Duke and Utah. With just 11 commitments so far, Auburn is in the same neighborhood as Utah State and Oregon State.
If there is any clearer marker for the general health of a program, it is in the talent said program can attract. And while there are 5 4-star athletes in Auburn’s 11-person 2026 haul so far, sitting below Kentucky (No. 38), Vanderbilt (No. 40) and Mississippi State (No. 52) in the overall rankings has got to keep Freeze up at nights.
In total fairness to our friends in Lee County, though, at least Auburn is whipping Missouri – which is ranked No. 66 with 10 total commitments! It isn’t total doom and gloom!
The potential reasons for Auburn’s impending recruiting nose-dive are legion, but chief among them is that there is a distinct sense the Tigers don’t have the kind of cold, hard cash necessary to keep up with the rest of the SEC. Of course, the naïve among us would offer that the House vs. NCAA settlement guidelines mean that every program theoretically has the same revenue-sharing budget to play with – but if you believe that, then you probably often wonder why some NASCAR teams are consistently faster than others even though they are presumably adhering to the same technical specs.
In a particularly rich bit of karma, Auburn also firmly believes it has entered this new era of recruiting “the right way” instead of trying to find the grimy edges of third-party NIL finagling that. Given that Freeze’s dealings at Ole Miss were tainted with more than their fair share of grime, Auburn’s holier-than-thou approach has gotta feel like schadenfreude inside the rest of the SEC football lairs.
It also hasn’t helped that Freeze has been effectively frozen out of his own state’s top recruits from points both east and west. On one side, Kirby Smart’s Georgia machine has hoovered up quite a bit of talent from Alabama, while on the other Kalen DeBoer has righted the Crimson Tide recruiting factory to shore up its share of in-state gems.
It also doesn’t help that Auburn has been a virtual revolving door of coaches. Freeze is entering his third year, yes, but he inherited an empty freezer of talent from the 2-season mistake that was Bryan Harsin. Heck, pretty much ever since Gene Chizik was shown the door just 2 years after winning a national title, Auburn has been casting about for their coaching savior with little success.
Auburn hasn’t won a bowl game since 2018 (the Music City Bowl, in Malzahn’s penultimate season) and hasn’t even recorded a winning record since 2020 (which saw Kevin Steele take over for Malzahn after the regular season). Freeze is 11-14 in 2 seasons at the helm, and is staring a schedule in the face that sees his team as potential underdogs in every SEC game it plays with the exception of the Nov. 1 home date with Kentucky.
This is not a recipe for success. The Tigers were predicted to finish 11th in the SEC by the media and sport an offense that barely cracks the top 50 in SP+ rankings. Yes, there are 6 preseason All-SEC players roaming around the Auburn sidelines to begin 2025, yet there is precious little to indicate that Freeze and Co. can parlay them into any sort of sustainable success.
Which is why realtors in the Auburn/Phenix City metroplex better be keeping their eyes peeled. Because Hugh Freeze is destined for the bread line before the ball drops in Times Square to usher in 2026.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
