Auburn fired head football coach Hugh Freeze on Sunday after a 10-3 loss to Kentucky, bringing a relatively quick end to what was a controversial hire less than three years ago.
When Auburn hired Freeze in early 2023, the school received pushback based on the NCAA violations and personal issues that ended Freeze’s Ole Miss tenure in 2016, as well as incidents with Freeze’s actions on social media at Liberty. But Auburn hoped it was getting the Freeze who turned Ole Miss and then Liberty into winning programs.
Freeze couldn’t do that at Auburn, which is 4-5 overall and 1-5 in the SEC this season to drop his final record at the school to 15-19. His three seasons were marked by close losses to rivals and elite teams like Georgia (2023 and ’24) and Alabama (2023), but also embarrassing home losses to the likes of New Mexico State (2023), Cal, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt (2024). The last straw was a loss to Kentucky, which entered Saturday on a 10-game SEC losing streak.
“I have informed coach Freeze of my decision to make a change in leadership with the Auburn football program,” athletic director John Cohen said in a statement Sunday afternoon. “Coach Freeze is a man of integrity, and we are appreciative of his investment in Auburn and his relentless work over the last three years in bolstering our roster. Our expectations for Auburn Football are to annually compete for championships, and the search for the next leader of Auburn Football begins immediately.”
Defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin will be the Tigers’ interim head coach. Durkin, who was on his fourth SEC school in a defensive coordinator role after stints at Florida, Ole Miss and Texas A&M, was head coach at Maryland from 2016 to ’18 but was fired in October 2018 in the wake of a school investigation following the death of offensive lineman Jordan McNair due to heatstroke following an offseason workout. The investigation outlined details of what a separate ESPN report described as a “toxic culture” fostered by coaches within Durkin’s program. In 2021 Maryland reached a $3.5 million settlement with McNair’s family.
The move means Auburn will be looking for its third full-time head coach since firing Gus Malzahn after the 2020 season. Bryan Harsin lasted less than two years, then interim coach Cadillac Williams had some support for the permanent job. But athletic director John Cohen zeroed in on Freeze, looking past the coach’s off-field past and at his on-field record: 76-47 at four schools, including 39-25 at Ole Miss, where he also beat Alabama twice.
Freeze’s first year at Auburn was a slight improvement, from 5-7 the year before he arrived to 6-7, although Freeze finished on a three-game losing streak, including the upset by New Mexico State and a bowl loss to Maryland. The next year, the Tigers slipped to 5-7, and the summer of 2025 was marked by stories about Freeze playing a lot of golf while the Tigers lost recruits.
Still, this season began with some hope. Freeze brought in quarterback Jackson Arnold, a former five-star recruit who transferred from Oklahoma and led the Tigers to a win at Baylor in the season opener. But after beating two non-power-conference opponents, Auburn lost close games at Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Georgia, Missouri and Kentucky, with the only reprieve a 33-24 win at Arkansas, which had already fired coach Sam Pittman. Those losses brought Freeze’s Auburn record to 3-13 in games decided by 10 points or less.
Auburn will owe Freeze a buyout of $15.7 million, paid out in monthly installments through 2028. The buyout would not be offset by what Freeze makes in another job. This was the third year of a six-year contract he signed when he was hired, which would have paid him $39 million over those six years.
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