Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze is chest deep in hot water. CBS Sports’ Shehan Jeyarajah mentioned him as a part of the hot seat rankings for 2025. For more clarity, the analyst placed him in the ‘starting improving now’ category. So, that means that the final bell has rung, and this is Freeze’s last chance to fix the loopholes.
He is given this chance since Freeze has already gifted Auburn fans an 11-14 record over his first two seasons of 2023 and 2024. But what did not sit well was the Tigers falling prey to a 5-7 finish in 2024, that too after signing the top-10 class. Time for a hard pill to swallow- Freeze’s Auburn hasn’t won more than six games since 2019. They are on a losing streak for the fourth straight year. Thus, the head coach is now treading carefully and has clarified the playcalling duties.
Justin Hokanson of On3 reported that the Auburn Tigers will not rely on one person to call plays on offense. Turns out that Freeze won’t even count on two coaches. To him, three is the sweet number to call plays on offense. No, not mere speculations. It was confirmed by the head coach himself as he faced the media on August 13. Freeze said, “Derrick Nix is the offensive coordinator, and he does all the planning and scripting, and is in charge of the game plan But, man, there’s no staff where there’s not a collaboration on the plan.”
Hugh Freeze was asked today to clarify the play-calling situation. Here is his explanation. https://t.co/3wkUA7WYFN pic.twitter.com/51wTwEm2Ry
— Justin Hokanson (@_JHokanson) August 14, 2025
So, the majority of the play-calling will be handled by offensive coordinator Derrick Nix. Both Freeze and Nix have the ability to speak with the quarterback through the in-helmet communication. Yet then, Freeze himself has got veto power and can step in to overrule a play choice if he doesn’t like it for a certain situation. As the Auburn head coach continued, “Offensively or defensively, I reserve the right to say on the call sheet, ‘yeah, I don’t really like that one right here.’ But he does a great job for us.” And what about the third one in the play-calling duties lineup?
Freeze noted, “Kent (Austin) leads the third-down plan. But other than that, Nix leads the charge and has the playcalling duties, with me reserving the right to say — I’ll go over when we’re on defense to do head-coaching duties and do the same thing there.” While Kent Austin is assigned the third-down playcalling task, it’s more about specializing in strategy for those scenarios. Freeze claimed that he may chime in on defense, too. “I don’t tell DJ [Durkin] a lot, but sometimes I can see what I think offenses are doing. And I’ll say, hey, we need to cloud this,” said the head coach. What makes Freeze being so particular about playcalling duties?
Taking a ride back to 2024, despite three leads in the fourth quarter, no coach seemed in sync with the other. The result? Auburn was fine on third down, converting 40.43% of their third-down attempts. Coming to the red zone, it was a complete mess. In scoring points, Freeze’s boys ranked No. 123 in the country in red zone scoring percentage at just 71.88%. Now that the Auburn head coach has come with the clarity, his old rival, Lane Kiffin, must be keeping his ears wide open.
Hugh Freeze’s playcalling puzzle sparked Lane Kiffin’s quip
When it comes to stirring Freeze’s pot, Kiffin is the first one to jump into the race. Back in July, this year, Freeze caught the headlines, not for good reasons, though. While the Tigers struggled with the 2026 recruiting class, losing commits back-to-back, the head coach was busy swinging a golf club. Freeze shared a picture of himself holding the Ryder Cup on X. And Kiffin could not wait to reshare it and came with a sarcastic jab, “Great job Coach!! Game is on .”
Turns out that things have been tart between the Ole Miss head coach and Freeze for quite some time now. Impressed with Ole Miss’s NIL setup, the Auburn head coach only had good words to share. But Kiffin did not take it in a good way and commented on Freeze’s compliment, “I’m sure he’ll [Freeze] try to steal Walker Jones like he’s tried all of our coaches also.” Turns out that Kiffin has his eyes on every move Freeze makes.
On August 12, Jon Tweet Sports tweeted, giving a glimpse of the present playcalling scenario in Auburn sharing his own thoughts on the move. He wrote, “If I’m following, at Auburn: Derrick Nix calls plays on 1st down, Hugh Freeze calls plays on 2nd down, Kent Austin calls plays on 3rd down, Hugh Freeze can overrule a play call at any time. But they’re all working together on play calling. Seems like a solid strategy.” And what better time for Kiffin to come with his expert commentary?
Resharing the tweet, the Rebels head coach wrote, “So does a 4th coach call 4th downs?? @AuburnFootball.” It’s plain sarcasm, folks, implying that if Hugh Freeze is using three different people for the first three downs, maybe he will assign a fourth person just for 4th down plays. Maybe this season, Auburn can flip Kiffin’s quips into compliments.
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