What does Hugh Freeze’s track record say about Auburn’s chances of reaching a bowl game in 2023?

By Ainslie Lee |
When Auburn kicks off the 2023 football season against UMass on Sept. 2, it’ll have been 1,340 days since the Tigers last appeared in a bowl game and 1,709 days since the Tigers won a bowl game.
After back-to-back losing seasons, there’s an undeniable thirst among Auburn fans to reach bowl eligibility this season. And if history is any indication, the Tigers have the right guy at the helm of the ship to get them there.
Auburn’s first-year head coach Hugh Freeze has been a first-year head coach five other times in his career. In each of those first seasons, Freeze piloted his team to a bowl game. Here’s a deep dive into each of Freeze’s first seasons, dating all the way back to his first head coaching gig at Briarcrest Christian School.
1995: Season 1 at Briarcrest Christian School
The year is 1995 — less than $15,000 would get you a new Volkswagen Jetta, which you could take to the gas station and fill with gas that ran about $1.15 a gallon.
Meanwhile, in Eads, Tenn., a 25-year-old young gun named Hugh Freeze was set to make his head coaching debut, taking the reins of the Briarcrest Christian football program after serving as an assistant with the program during the three seasons prior.
In 1994, the season before Freeze took over, the Saints football program finished the regular season 9-1 and picked up an additional three wins during the playoffs before being bounced in the state quarterfinals.
The next season, Freeze followed it up with another playoff berth after once again going 9-1 in the regular season. In Freeze’s first year, however, Briarcrest Christian made an early exit out of the playoffs after suffering a narrow, 19-15 loss in the opening round.
Nonetheless, the Saints punched their ticket to the postseason in Season 1 under Freeze.
2008: Season 1 at Lambuth University
It’s 2008 — American’s are limping through the housing market crash and Freeze is taking over a Lambuth University football program that’s got a limp of its own after finishing the 2007 with three straight losses and going 3-8 on the season.
The Lambuth Eagles were coming off three consecutive losing seasons when Freeze took over.
But in a few short months, Freeze had turned the tables.
In Season 1 under Freeze, the Eagles went 8-4, including an eight-game win streak through the heart of the season. In seven games that season, the Lambuth offense scored 48 or more points.
Lambuth found itself in a battle with Lindenwood in the opening game of the NAIA championship series. It wasn’t a game that went Freeze and the Eagles’ way as it ended in a 65-48 loss, but it was quite the turn around for a program that had consistently missed out on the postseason.
2011: Season 1 at Arkansas State
Come 2011, the year that both the Harry Potter film series and the Oprah Winfrey show end, Freeze is back in the head coaching ranks.
Freeze first arrived to Arkansas State in 2010 as the Red Wolves’ offensive coordinator but quickly took over as head coach the following season after a lackluster, 4-8 season in 2010.
And the first-year head coach turned the program on its head.
Arkansas State finished its 2011 campaign 10-3 and a perfect 8-0 in the Sun Belt Conference — all leading to the Red Wolves winning the conference in Freeze’s first season.
Come the postseason, Freeze had already accepted the Ole Miss head coaching job and took with him four Arkansas State assistants.
With Freeze departed, Arkansas State’s running backs coach David Gunn served as interim head coach as the Red Wolves drew a bowl game matchup with Northern Illinois in the GoDaddy.com Bowl in Mobile, Ala.
And though the Red Wolves sprinted out to a 13-0 lead, the Huskies would go on to hang 31 unanswered points to secure a 38-20 win and snap Arkansas State’s nine-game win streak.
Was Freeze technically Arkansas State’s head coach for the bowl game? No. But he is the one who gets the credit for piloting the Red Wolves to the postseason to begin with. So for the sake of the argument, we’re calling this another year-one bowl game appearance for Freeze.
2012: Season 1 at Ole Miss
Turns out, the Mayans were wrong and the world wouldn’t end in 2012.
Instead, Freeze would return to Oxford, Miss. — a place he previously served as Ole Miss’ tight ends coach from 2006-07. This go ‘round, however, Freeze would be the Rebels’ main guy as he took over an Ole Miss team that had gone 2-10 and 0-8 in SEC play the year prior.
In the first of five seasons as the Rebels’ head coach, Freeze helped Ole Miss return to bowl eligibility after a two-season drought.
Just six weeks after upsetting No. 25 Mississippi State to win the Egg Bowl, Freeze and the Rebels took to Birmingham, Ala. to take on Pittsburgh in the BBVA Compass Bowl. The Rebels went on to top the Panthers 38-17, giving Ole Miss its first bowl win since a 21-7 win over Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl Classic in 2009.
Freeze’s bowl win over Pitt was the first of three during his time in Oxford, though it ended up being vacated as part of the sanctions pressed against the Ole Miss football program for ineligible player participation.
2019: Season 1 at Liberty
In 2019, Disney+ makes its debut, the United States Women’s National Soccer Team captures its fourth World Cup title and Freeze returns the college football scene after resigning from Ole Miss in 2017. Freeze makes his return as the ninth head football coach at Liberty University.
Like every other program that had hired Freeze as its head coach, Liberty was looking for a revival after a mundane 2018 season that saw the Flames go 6-6 and miss out on a bowl game due to it being their first year in the FBS and there being more teams with winning records than there were bowl games.
In Year 1 under Freeze, however, Liberty had no issue securing a bowl game appearance after a 7-5 finish in the regular season — which was the second-best finish amongst FBS independent programs behind Notre Dame.
Freeze and the Flames lined up against Georgia Southern in the Cure Bowl and went on to beat the Eagles 23-16 in Orlando.
In three seasons at Liberty, Freeze led the Flames to four consecutive bowl appearances — three of which Liberty won.
Like the case at Arkansas State, Freeze had already accepted the head coaching job at Auburn before Liberty took the field for the 2022 Boca Raton Bowl against Toledo. As a result, Josh Aldridge served as the Flames’ interim head coach in Freeze’s absence.
2023: Season 1 at Auburn
And this is where we leave off.
Freeze’s first season as Auburn’s head coach is set to get underway in a week. And while some might believe it’s a bit early to bother with bowl eligibility, Tigers fans who have watched their team miss out on the postseason the last two years might argue otherwise.
Fortunately for Auburn fans, if history repeats itself, Freeze might be the guy to get the Tigers back into a bowl game in his first season on The Plains.