Liberty coach Hugh Friese could be a potential target to replace Brian Harsin at Auburn.
While Hugh Freeze is now enjoying great success at Liberty, he may have successfully returned to SEC West as a serious candidate to replace Bryan Harsin at Auburn.
Harsin still has a job, but she’s clearly a lame duck. Auburn has split from the man who employed him on her former athletic director Allen Greene. Although Freeze left Ole Miss according to the most scandalous terms, winning profusely is a great way to forgive and forget. Most importantly, desperation makes people do a lot of crazy things. Everyone knows how desperate Auburn is.
While Freeze has agreed to a new contract at Liberty that runs through the 2023 season, he only earns about $5 million annually over the life of the deal. It’s a pay increase, but it may not make a difference when Auburn decides to make a head coach change this out of season. It really comes down to the price of wood and who ends up replacing Green as sporting director.
One name to watch as Green’s long-term successor is Mississippi State Athletic Director John Cohen. Despite being a Mississippi graduate, money and Cohen talks can be had at the right price.
Wouldn’t it be a thing if two men from both sides of the Egg Bowl unite and take Auburn?
How seriously should we take Hugh Friese as a potential Auburn candidate?
Although it didn’t end well for him at Oxford, Friese won several matches during his short Ole Miss career. His Rebel team got Nick Saban and Alabama in trouble, a team that happens to be their arch rival, you guessed it, Auburn! Freeze has shown at Liberty that he can win in abundance and develop talent. He did more for Willis’ owner in Lynchburg than Gus Malzan did in Auburn…
Admittedly, that would be something the league office wouldn’t like if it brought a program like Auburn’s Freeze back to the SEC. Then again, would they in Auburn prefer hiring someone like Urban Meyer? Deion Sanders may be a good fit, but Auburn boosters may have some reservations about whether HBCU’s secret Coach Prime sauce can work in SEC.
Ultimately, Freese will be back training at the Power Five sooner rather than later. Liberty may do her part to keep him for as long as possible, but that’s an imperative at this point. Most importantly, unlucky undergraduate majors will seize the opportunity to freeze and consider him a serious candidate. It may not be a tiger per se, but it will get a gig.
Once you pull the plug on Harsin’s failed experiment, expect Freeze to be a candidate.
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