As the College Football season approaches, the chase for the wildest story of the offseason has become a battle. Nico Iamaleava's transfer portal saga but, Hugh Freeze's golf habits are giving it a run for its money. The headlines the last few weeks have been dominated by how much Hugh Freeze plays golf in the offseason and if it's leading to Auburn's struggles.
The story started with AL.com running a story on which SEC coaches were playing the most golf, and Hugh Freeze's 11 rounds played in the Month of June were far more than the next coach in Shane Beamer, who played three times. The story caught fire as the Auburn Tigers started to see their recruiting class fall apart while Alabama caught fire on the recruiting trail.
As a sector of the Auburn fanbase continues to blame Hugh Freeze for playing too much golf for the Tigers' struggles on the recruiting trail, a response was eventually going to come. Freeze joined David Pollack's show "See Ball Get Ball" where he finally addressed how his golf hasn't taken away from any of his effort on the recruiting trail.
"You know, everybody seems to like to talk about my golf game. … I do love golf. I enjoy playing, but what people don’t realize is, you know, I assure you that I never missed a camp day or a recruiting day but if camp got over at three o’clock one day, and Jill and I go out at 4:30, we absolutely might do that. And I’m not apologizing for that part of it. But my focus is 100% on getting Auburn in that win column this fall."Hugh Freeze
On one hand, Hugh Freeze has every right to take a step away from the pressure of being a college football coach and enjoy himself. If Auburn was coming off of a 10 win season rather than the year the Tigers just had, Auburn fans wouldn't have any problem with what their coach was doing. If Hugh Freeze was doing something like fishing or hunting where he wasn't seen, he'd get away with how he spends his free time.
The Auburn fans have every right to be upset with how Hugh Freeze's tenure has gone to this point and where it is trending. Seeing your struggling coach spending every moment of his free time not focused on the program can be frustrating. At the end of the day, Auburn ranks 72nd in the Country and 16th in the SEC which is far below where Auburn fans would expect to land.