12/2/22 Auburn Articles

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Hugh Freeze's past offenses by the numbers

JD McCarthy

4–5 minutes

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Auburn’s last two coaches’ downfall was that their offenses were no longer meeting expectations.

For Gus Malzahn that meant they slipped from where they were early in his tenure, while Bryan Harsin was never able to establish an effective offense.

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Hugh Freeze was hired to change that and he has had success in the SEC with his offensive scheme. Which he has used to beat Nick Saban multiple times, something not many coaches can say.

His offense is based around a dangerous passing attack and developing quarterbacks, something that has Robby Ashford “excited” to work with his new coach.

This will mark a change in Auburn’s past offenses, which were based around a ground attack that opened up holes in the defense that the passing game could then exploit.

Here is a look at Freeze’s offenses at Arkansas State (2011), Ole Miss 2012-16), and Liberty (2019-22) by the numbers and how they rank compared to the rest of their peers.

Category	Stat	Conference Rank
Points per game	32.5	1
Total offense	448.7	1
Yards per play	5.73	2
Rushing yards per game	154.23	2
Rushing yards per carry	3.89	5
Passing yards per game	293.6	1
Yards per attempt	7.6	2
Completion %	65.2%	1
3rd down conversion %	42.08%	2
Red zone TD %	56.06%	5

Category	Stat	Conference Rank
Points per game	31.5	5
Total offense	423.8	5
Yards per play	5.73	7
Rushing yards per game	174	5
Yards per carry	4.09	10
Passing yards per game	249.8	5
Yards per attempt	7.9	5
Completion %	63.3	5
3rd down conversion %	44.28%	4
Red zone TD %	66.67%	4

Category	Stat	Conference Rank
Points per game	30	9
Total Offense	423.8	5
Yards per play	5.73	7
Rushing Yards per game	190	7
Yards per carry	4.68	10
Passing Yards per game	283.3	3
Yards per attempt	7.5	9
Completion %	63.3%	6
3rd down conversion %	45.69%	5
Red zone TD %	52.17%	13

Category	Stat	Conference Rank
Points per game	28.3	11
Total offense	419.1	7
Yards per play	6.03	7
Rushing yards per game	155.46	10
Yards per carry	4.25	11
Passing yards per game	263.6	5
Yards per attempt	8	5
Completion %	60.3%	7
3rd down conversion %	39.34%	10
Red zone TD %	56.1%	11

Category	Stat	Conference Rank
Points per game	40.8	1
Total offense	517.8	1
Yards per play	7.07	1
Rushing yards per game	183.08	7
Yards per carry	5.14	2
Passing Yards per game	334.7	1
Yards per attempt	8.9	2
Completion %	65%	4
3rd down conversion %	41.41%	5
Red zone TD %	59.68	5

Category	Stat	Conference Rank
Points per game	32.6	4
Total offense	464.3	3
Yards per play	6.16	7
Rushing yards per game	149.42	12
Yards per carry	4.25	11
Passing yards per game	314.9	1
Yards per attempt	7.8	4
Completion %	59.8%	6
3rd down conversion %	40.24%	9
Red zone TD %	54.39%	13

Category	Stat	National Rank
Points per game	32.8	34
Total offense	439.4	32
Yards per play	6.44	18
Rushing yards per game	150.46	78
Yards per carry	4.5	59
Passing yards per game	288.9	21
Yards per attempt	8.3	24
Completion %	56.9%	92
3rd down conversion %	40.72%	58
Red zone TD %	69.64%	26

Category	Stat	National Rank
Points per game	38.2	16
Total offense	482.7	15
Yards per play	6.71	13
Rushing yards per game	252.36	9
Yards per carry	5.74	7
Passing yards per game	230.4	62
Yards per attempt	8.3	26
Completion %	62.9%	39
3rd down conversion %	48.3%	13
Red zone TD %	58.93%	82

Category	Stat	National Rank
Points per game	33.6	25
Total offense	436.2	35
Yards per play	6.38	24
Rushing yards per game	181.23	45
Yards per carry	4.64	48
Passing yards per game	255	43
Yards per attempt	8.7	15
Completion %	59.3%	82
3rd down conversion %	42.86%	41
Red zone TD %	71.11%	11

Category	Stat	National Rank
Points per game	28.3	68
Total offense	400.5	59
Yards per play	5.67	67
Rushing yards per game	178.5	48
Yards per carry	4.53	52
Passing yards per game	220	77
Yards per attempt	7.1	76
Completion %	57.9%	94
3rd down conversion %	37.13%	85
Red zone TD %	62.22%	64

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Auburn’s Hugh Freeze to join ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’ on Saturday

Published: Dec. 02, 2022, 5:57 a.m.

3–4 minutes

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AUBURN, AL - November 29, 2022 - Auburn Head Football Coach Hugh Freeze and Athletics Director John Cohen embrace during Hugh Freeze’s introductory press conference at the Woltosz Football Performance Center in Auburn, AL. Photo By Austin PerrymanAustin Perryman

New Auburn football coach Hugh Freeze is scheduled to be on the set of ESPN’s College GameDay on Saturday, Dec. 3. The three-hour college pregame show will be live streamed on fuboTV (free trial).

ESPN’s “College GameDay” will be in Arlington, Texas, for the Big 12 Championship game between No. 10 Kansas State and No. 3 TCU. It is GameDay’s first visit to the Big 12 Championship since 2007.

Freeze will be on set with host Rece Davis and analysts Desmond Howard, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Pat McAfee and David Pollack.

Top-ranked Georgia’s head coach Kirby Smart will join for a remote interview ahead of the Bulldogs’ SEC Championship game in Atlanta. College Football Playoff Committee Chair Boo Corrigan will also join the show remotely.

Hugh Freeze’s return to the league more than five years after his scandal-plagued exit was greeted by considerable backlash on social media from wary fans. The former Ole Miss and Liberty coach had to talk about his past during his introductory news conference as much as his belief that Auburn can make a quick turnaround. He urged fans to “please give me a chance to earn your trust.”

Freeze left Ole Miss after personal misconduct and NCAA violations.

Auburn gave Freeze a six-year contract worth at least $6.5 million annually, making him the eighth-highest paid coach in the SEC. The buyout, if Freeze is fired without cause, would be 75% of his remaining contract.

Freeze resigned from Ole Miss in the summer of 2017 after school officials uncovered a “pattern of personal misconduct” starting with a call to a number used by an escort service from a university-issued cellphone. The program ultimately landed on NCAA probation for 21 violations of academic, booster and recruiting misconduct mostly under Freeze’s watch.

When is GameDay?

“College GameDay” will air Saturday, Dec. 3 from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. (9 a.m. to noon ET).

Live stream

FuboTV

The game will be live streamed on fuboTV, which offers a free trial. The most basic of plans is the “fubo standard” package, which comprises 121-plus channels for $69.99 per month. Like all cord-cutting alternatives, there are plenty of options, especially for sports. It comes with more than 1,000 hours of cloud-based DVR, and up to 10 screens at once.

Will it be televised?

“College GameDay” will be televised on ESPN.

Mark Heim is a sports reporter of for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.

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Auburn AD John Cohen discusses ‘due diligence’ in hiring of Hugh Freeze

Published: Dec. 01, 2022, 8:14 p.m.

8–10 minutes

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Auburn athletics director John Cohen did not take questions at Tuesday’s introductory press conference for new coach Hugh Freeze.

Cohen gave a prepared opening statement that lasted less than five minutes before turning the stage over to Freeze, and the program’s new AD did not make himself available for comment to the media afterward despite the attention that comes with the hiring of Freeze, whose complicated past has been well-documented.

Read more Auburn football: Charles Barkley on Auburn coach Hugh Freeze, and the negative blowback that came with him

Auburn grads, students say Hugh Freeze hire reflects school handling of rape cases: ‘Embarrassing’

Offensive lineman Keiondre Jones to enter transfer portal, could return to Auburn

On Thursday evening, Cohen took questions about the coaching search, albeit during an appearance on Auburn’s in-house weekly radio show, “Tiger Talk.” Cohen joined hosts Andy Burcham and Brad Law to provide some further insight to the search, which lasted four weeks and involved the use of a search firm, two analytics firms, feedback from the Southeastern Conference office and other resources to help vet candidates. Ultimately, Cohen landed on Freeze, who was among the top candidates for the job since the search began Oct. 31.

While Cohen was not asked about the pushback from fans who expressed concerns about Freeze’s viability for the position, he answered a handful of questions during his appearance on the radio show. Here’s a look at everything he had to say Thursday evening:

JOHN COHEN, Auburn AD

On the thoroughness of the search…

“Well, you know, when you make a decision of this magnitude, you treat it with the utmost seriousness. You know, a lot of people—the great thing about being part of a tradition of family like the Auburn family, you know, people have thoughts; for sure they share those thoughts, but you got to go deep, deep, deep, and you got to find out everything. And when you have a coach who has coached at as many of the places Hugh has, or any one of those candidates, you got to go to every one of those places to find out why they had success, to find out what the relationship was with the student-athletes, to find out what their abilities were to recruit. It’s a very long, drawn-out process. You just, you got to do your due diligence because that’s what we get paid to do.”

On if there were one or two characteristics or elements of Freeze’s vision for Auburn that made him stand out as a candidate…

“I think there’s a great recruiting plan. I think there’s a great plan—the truth of the matter is this, guys, when you talk to someone for an hour, hour and a half, two hours, they can sell you on anything, but when you talk to student-athletes, you talk to former coaches who competed against and with him, and you talk about parents who have student-athletes who played for him, and when all of them start saying the same thing about his vision, his recruiting, about how much he cares and identifies with the players themselves, the student-athletes, then you really got something there. That’s what we found with Hugh Freeze.”

On if Freeze is the right “fit”—a word Cohen stressed the importance of early in the search process—for Auburn…

“Well, when we first started the process and we looked at all of our criteria, Hugh Freeze jumped out at us. I mean, I just kept thinking he is such a great fit for this job, but I wanted to go deep, I wanted to interview several people, and I wanted to make sure he was the right decision. We kind of started with Hugh, we kind of ended up with Hugh for all the same reasons, and he’s going to do a great job in this community in so many ways. I know Bruce is from Boston, right, and I know Hugh’s from Mississippi, but when you’re talking to him, if you close your eyes and you take the accents out of it, you could be talking to the same guy because both those guys have so much energy, so much passion, and they just connect with the community, and I really wanted that to be part of it. He’s still got to win games, and I mentioned Bruce, he’s won a ton of the games, but you still got to win games, and I really believe Hugh can do that here and will do that here.”

On if he was surprised at the reaction when it was announced Cadillac Williams would remain on staff..

“I was, and I was a guy who watched him play from afar, I knew he was a great player, I knew he was a great NFL player, I knew the Auburn community loved him, but four weeks ago, when we’re playing A&M, I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced anything like that in my life. Honestly, I walk into that game and I think, ‘We’re playing for a national championship,’ and it’s nothing against our team, but there’s two teams that both have three wins late in the year, and the atmosphere, the energy, and all that came from Cadillac. When we interviewed Hugh, the first thing he said was, ‘Do you think we can get Cadillac? He’s that important to my staff. Do you think he’ll be part of this?’ I said, ‘I don’t know; that’s something you’d have to discuss with him,’ but certainly Cadillac’s been phenomenal, and he’s going to be on this staff, and he’s going to be a huge part of Auburn football moving forward.”

On the due diligence of the search process and what resources he used…

“Well, let’s start with the Southeastern Conference office and folks who work there, let’s talk about, again, Briarcrest High School, where Hugh was. Ole Miss, Arkansas State, obviously Liberty. Lambuth. Everywhere he has been, we checked in, and that common theme, common messaging—former student-athletes, former trainers, former student managers—and you can’t get away from those student managers; those guys know what’s going on now, and they all gave the same: ‘Hey, I want to work with that guy. I mean, if I ever had a chance to work with that guy, I want to work with that guy. He has energy. He shows up every day with tremendous passion.’ Again, sounds a lot like the guy you’re about to talk to on the show now.”

On who helped him conduct the search…

“Certainly, Rich McGlynn was working with me. He’s got such a great background with compliance. I don’t know if anybody on our staff knows Auburn like Rich McGlynn does, and I feel so privileged to work with him every day. Lee VanHorn, who’s my chief of staff, who was just working at a law firm in Arkansas, did a ton of legal background for me. We obviously had a search firm. We had two different analytics firms that we worked with. So, there were a lot of people involved.”

On what the analytics said about Freeze…

“There’s so many different categories. One of the most intriguing to me, those guys—those analytics guys say: Is this coach supposed to win this game based on their talent and the talent they’re facing? So, you’re really finding out their coaching ability. Is this guy recruiting at a level that’s higher than the norm for that school? If he recruiting at a level that’s competitive with the rest of the league? When this guy plays against this guy, what’s the talent deficit? What’s really interesting is — and Hugh was ranked so high among available coaches to us — but some of the best coaches in college football rarely, over a long period of time, ever play a team that has a deficiency in talent. I’m sorry, has more talent than the team they’re coaching. In some cases, you really can’t determine how good a coach they are if they’re always more talented than their opponent.”

On the importance of maintaining visibility in the community…

“One of the challenges I had over the last four weeks, because I was totally immersed in that—at times 18 hours a day—and traveling around and speaking to people, but now I really want to focus on our kids, our student-athletes, our fans, our coaches, our staff. Really, I’ve learned so much about Auburn from all those folks. I know at age 56, I don’t know everything about Auburn; I’ve got a lot to learn, but it’s great to learn from these great people that I get to work with every day.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.

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Greg Sankey comments on Hugh Freeze's return to SEC

Nathan King

3–4 minutes

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Hugh Freeze undoubtedly caused some headaches for Greg Sankey when he was at Ole Miss. But the SEC commissioner is ready to move forward now that Freeze has re-entered the conference.

Sankey said Thursday during this year's SEC championship press conference that he chatted with Freeze over the phone earlier in the day and congratulated him for his new role on the Plains.

"I look from this point forward; we're informed by people's pasts," Sankey said. "Hugh and I actually had an individual phone call earlier today, very positive. That's not the first phone call he and I've had in the last five years. I appreciated the way he responded during his press conference, and I respect the fact that he and I, over the succeeding years since his departure from Ole Miss, could have candid and honest conversation."

In only his third year as SEC commissioner in 2017, Sankey was privy to Freeze's undoing at Ole Miss, where he was forced to either resign or be fired for cause after an NCAA investigation found Freeze had been using a university phone to contact female escort services throughout his time with the Rebels. The investigation was sparked due to recruiting violations and ultimately saw Ole Miss vacate 27 wins from Freeze's tenure.

When Freeze was introduced as Auburn's new head coach Tuesday, he said he's kept a strong relationship with Sankey and is excited to follow his leadership again.

"I have had a really good, honest relationship with him throughout all of it," Freeze said. "He’s never done anything but shoot me dead straight and tell me what he thought was best, not only for the conference, but for me. I appreciate a man that treats you like that. I’m thankful for all of his leadership."

After Freeze stepped down from Ole Miss ahead of the 2017 season, Nick Saban reportedly wanted to hire him as Alabama's offensive coordinator at the end of the year, after Brian Daboll left for the same position in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills. Per an AL.com report, Sankey persuaded Saban not to hire Freeze, who returned to coaching in 2019 at Liberty.

On Tuesday, Freeze denied Sankey has ever kept Freeze from returning to the SEC in any capacity.

“I have never been told that by commissioner Sankey," Freeze said. "I’m not sure that’s accurate. I believe I had chances to get into the league as an offensive coordinator and I chose to go to Liberty as the head coach. I’m pretty confident of that. I did seek his advice, which I value.”

Sankey did not dance around Freeze's troubled past, and said Freeze himself addressed that on their phone call, as Auburn moves into a new era for the football program after going 11-14 over the past two seasons.

"There's a lot of work to do, and he kind of brought me up to speed on some of that this morning," Sankey said. "I'm confident there's been plenty of opportunities for learning over the years and look forward to working with Hugh again."

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Charles Barkley on Auburn coach Hugh Freeze, and the negative blowback that came with him

Updated: Dec. 01, 2022, 3:51 p.m.|Published: Dec. 01, 2022, 3:48 p.m.

2–3 minutes

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Alabama native Charles Barkley arrives for the Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony in Springfield, Mass, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022, in Springfield, Mass. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

Charles Barkley doesn’t know Hugh Freeze, but he’s going to support the new Auburn football coach.

Barkley, the former Auburn great and analyst on “NBA on TNT,” has made it clear who he wanted as the next coach. He’s also made his feelings known on the way Auburn treated former coach Bryan Harsin, but the former NBA star is all in on Freeze.

“I will always support who’s coaching at Auburn,” Barkley told AL.com on Thursday. “I made no secret about it. I was hoping for (Jackson State head coach and former NFL star) Deion Sanders, but they went in a different direction.

“I think I said what I always said. I didn’t like the way Bryan Harsin was treated. They put him in a really awkward situation where he couldn’t be successful. Now, we have to get our stuff together to support the new coach 100 percent.”

It’s no secret there have been those who are against the hiring of Freeze and what the move symbolizes for Auburn.

RELATED: What was Hugh Freeze accused of?

“One thing about being in the ‘Bible Belt,’ there’s a lot of people around here who think they’ve never made a mistake in their life,” Barkley said. “I never pay attention to that noise, and that’s what it is noise. Ain’t none of us perfect, but for some reason when you’re in the ‘Bible Belt,’ I saw a sign ‘don’t judge anyone.’ They judge everyone.

“You can’t pay that any attention. The guy’s our coach now. We have to support him.”

Mark Heim is a sports reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.

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