The Hugh Freeze era at Auburn is now over, per multiple reports, and through just under three seasons, it never seemed to get off the ground.

Freeze’s tenure on the Plains finished with a 15-19 record, which included a 6-16 mark in SEC play and 9-11 record at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The most memorable moments during his two and a half seasons were memorable for the wrong reasons, and many of them led to his eventual dismissal.

Here are five moments that led to Freeze’s downfall at Auburn, as he became just the second coach in program history to be fired midseason.

Nov. 18, 2023: 31-10 loss to New Mexico State

This may have been the first major strike against Freeze in terms of bad results, and this loss remains arguably the most inexplicable of his tenure.

Auburn came into the game as a 26-point favorite, but nearly lost by that margin. Then-New Mexico State quarterback Diego Pavia carved up Auburn’s defense, and it wouldn’t be the last time he’d get a win over the Tigers.

It also came after Auburn had won three games in a row, bringing some optimism back to the program after Freeze lost his first four SEC games.

By the time the final whistle blew against New Mexico State, much of that optimism was gone, as Auburn finished Freeze’s first season on a three-game losing streak.

Sept. 7, 2024: 21-14 loss to Cal

Despite a disappointing end to the 2023 season, Auburn’s roster was improved in 2024 and there was hope that results on the field would improve.

After a blowout of Alabama A&M to start the year, Auburn was set to host Cal in Week 2, a game in which the Tigers were favored by double digits and felt could be a chance to prove themselves.

The opposite happened.

Auburn lost to a less-talented Cal team, mostly due to the Tigers’ five turnovers. Four of them were interceptions by Payton Thorne, the quarterback Freeze doubled down on to keep as the Tigers’ starter after a disappointing Year 1.

Turnovers went on to be a major issue throughout the 2024 season, defining losses to Arkansas, Oklahoma and Alabama after the Cal defeat. Thorne went on to have a solid season, but turnovers and red zone inefficiency held the offense back.

Summer 2025: Recruiting fall off

For the first two years of the Freeze era at Auburn, recruiting success was the primary source of hope.

Auburn’s 2024 and 2025 signing classes ranked in the top 10 of the country, according to 247Sports. The last time Auburn had signed consecutive top 10 classes was 2016-2017.

The biggest difference between then and now was that Gus Malzahn used those classes to take the 2017 team to the SEC Championship, while Freeze never won more than six games.

In the summer of 2025, following Freeze’s second season at Auburn, recruiting started to trend in the wrong direction. The Tigers had a string of players decommit from the program, at one point landing them at No. 89 in 247Sports’ team recruiting rankings.

In the midst of that recruiting dry spell, AL.com reported that Freeze had logged more rounds of golf than any other SEC coach, according to the USGA’s GHIN database.

Athletic director John Cohen defended Freeze at the time, and both of them attributed the decommitments to the financial adjustments brought on by the House Settlement on July 1. Cohen often pointed to Aug. 1 as a marker of when things could change, with that being the first day recruits could receive verbal offers.

Auburn’s recruiting did pick up, but at the time of Freeze’s firing, the class ranks 32nd in the country, much better than 89th, but a long way from the top 10 spot the Tigers had become used to.

Oct. 11, 2025: 20-10 loss to Georgia

There’s no shame in losing to Georgia, even if it’s a home game and Georgia isn’t quite as dominant compared to previous years.

The issue with this loss was how it happened. Auburn led 10-0 near the end of the first half and was half of a yard away from going up 17-0, which may have put the game out of reach. Instead, a controversial fumble call gave the ball back to Georgia, and the Tigers fell apart after that.

Georgia started at its own one-yard line after the fumble and marched down the field to kick a field goal before halftime. The Bulldogs went on to score the game’s final 20 points, dominating the second half as Auburn could only muster 40 total yards in the final 20 minutes.

Auburn caught a handful of bad breaks from officials during the 2025 season under Freeze’s watch, but that bad luck always seemed to be an excuse, not a rallying cry.

Nov. 1, 2025: 10-3 loss to Kentucky

Saturday’s loss to Kentucky seemed to be the final straw for Auburn athletic director John Cohen.

The Tigers were coming off a nice win over Arkansas, but a loss to a 2-5 team that was winless in SEC play felt different than the other losses to ranked teams. Auburn looked bad in the game, putting together its worst offensive performance in recent memory.

Auburn scored just three points in the game, its lowest output since losing 20-3 to Texas A&M in 2021. Even after a quarterback change, Freeze couldn’t find any answers offensively.

He was once known as great offensive mind, but the Kentucky loss was the perfect example of just how much his ability as an offensive coach had regressed.

When your coach is no longer good at the thing he specializes in, it’s hard to find a silver lining. The Kentucky loss seemed to be the moment Auburn realized that and decided it was time for a change.

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