{"id":223028,"date":"2025-10-14T03:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T03:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/223028\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T03:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T03:05:07","slug":"auburn-ad-john-cohen-on-potentially-firing-hugh-freeze-not-my-expectation-at-this-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/223028\/","title":{"rendered":"Auburn AD John Cohen on potentially firing Hugh Freeze: &#8216;Not my expectation at this point&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The seats of college football coaches across the country continue to heat up. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/auburn-tigers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Auburn<\/a>\u2018s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/hugh-freeze-134705\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hugh Freeze<\/a> is thought to be somebody in that position in the midst of his third season in charge. Three straight losses bring questions about where his future stands.<\/p>\n<p>Auburn athletic director John Cohen was recently asked about the status of Freeze\u2019s job after dropping Saturday\u2019s game to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/georgia-bulldogs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Georgia<\/a> at home. He claims \u201cnever say never\u201d about a potential change. However, his overall \u201cexpectation\u201d is for Freeze to finish out the 2025 season and return in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to walk outside and my car is going to start or not, I think it is,\u201d Cohen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.al.com\/auburnfootball\/2025\/10\/exclusive-auburn-ad-addresses-future-of-head-coach-hugh-freeze.html?gift=7e16be21-eca7-427d-83f6-49f939b038c1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> Monday via AL.com. \u201cI have an expectation it will. But if my car doesn\u2019t start enough, then I will evaluate that and make decisions about my car. But that\u2019s not my expectation at this point about our football program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cohen then laid out his thought process when it comes to making a decision on keeping Freeze or potentially moving on. There are a few questions for him to ask when looking at his own program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs the locker room still buying in? Are we still bringing in the right types of student athletes, both out of the portal and from the high school and junior college ranks? And are our kids getting better? And are they giving a great effort?\u201d Cohen said. \u201cThat\u2019s the template for me. Those are the questions I have to answer for myself in any program that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Auburn enters an important game against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/sites\/mizzou-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Missouri<\/a> with a 3-3 record on Saturday. All three losses are in SEC play after starting the year out 3-0. Plenty of on-field frustrations are bubbling for the Tigers, mainly with some of the officiating going against them in massive spots.<\/p>\n<p>The schedule does not get any easier, though. If you include Mizzou, there are three ranked opponents remaining \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/sites\/the-dore-report\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Vanderbilt<\/a> and a massive home Iron Bowl against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/alabama-crimson-tide\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alabama<\/a>. A tough road game vs. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/sites\/hawg-beat\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arkansas<\/a> looms too, while also hosting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/kentucky-wildcats\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kentucky<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/mercer-bears\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, Freeze is 14-17 and 5-14 vs. the SEC since taking over on the Plains. He initially asked for patience in order to build up the roster through recruiting and, at times, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/transfer-portal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NCAA transfer portal<\/a>. Recruiting has not been a problem for Freeze, finishing with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/auburn-tigers\/football\/2024\/industry-comparison-commits\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">back-to-back top-10<\/a> classes per the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/auburn-tigers\/football\/2025\/industry-comparison-commits\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rivals Industry Team Rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The seats of college football coaches across the country continue to heat up. Auburn\u2018s Hugh Freeze is thought&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-223028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}