Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze walks off the field after Auburn Tigers take on Kentucky Wildcats at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala. on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. Kentucky Wildcats defeated Auburn Tigers 10-3.

The Auburn Tigers had seen enough. One week after the Tennessee Volunteers hung 56 points on the Kentucky Wildcats, Auburn hosted UK on the plains and managed a single field goal. A 10-3 loss as a 12-point favorite dropped the Tigers to 4-5 on the season with a single victory over an SEC foe -- an Arkansas Razorbacks team without a permanent head coach.

On the heels of back-to-back losing seasons, Auburn's patience drained to untenable levels. On Sunday, the university reportedly relieved Freeze of his duties, eating more than $15 million in buyout costs in the process.

Freeze was a controversial hire back in 2023. He'd guided Ole Miss to a 39-25 record in five seasons, peaking with No. 3 rankings during the 2014 and 2015 seasons and securing bowl eligibility his first four years in Oxford. But he also ran afoul of the NCAA for impermissibly paying players and with his own fanbase for misusing program resources -- including calling an escort service with a university-issued cell phone. He resigned in disgrace in 2015 rather than be fired for violating the morals clause in his contract. 27 of his wins were eventually vacated by the NCAA.

Since Freeze won games, all he had to do to restore his value was wait long enough for the bad news to blow over. He was hired by the Liberty Flames in 2018 and won 34 games in four seasons with the then-independent program. He also gave us this image, which could probably use some context but works so much better without it.

Auburn needed a winner, optics be damned. Freeze took over a program that slogged through back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 1999 under an overmatched Bryan Harsin. Freeze offered an option with a proven SEC track record in a changed NCAA landscape that how allowed teams to pay players. Multiple top-10 recruiting classes rolled in. Optimism abounded and the Tigers seemed primed for something better.

But Freeze's brand, beyond the piousness with which he wrapped himself while making calls to escort services back when he was antagonizing critics at Ole Miss, was mediocrity. Blue chip recruits couldn't save him from his inability to make meaningful adjustments in-game or during the season. No one exploited this better than a former zero-star recruit. Enter Diego Pavia.

Pavia's first encounter with Freeze came as a first-year, post-junior college starter at New Mexico State when scored six touchdowns to lead the Aggies to a 49-14 win over Liberty in Lynchburg. One year later, he guided New Mexico State to a 31-10 win to help spoil Freeze's debut season in Alabama, tossing three more touchdowns in the process. This wasn't enough for Pavia. When Vanderbilt offered the chance to continue beating Freeze like a snare drum, he made the leap to the SEC. Pavia guided the Commodores to a 17-7 win in Nashville last fall to secure bowl eligibility for the first time since 2018.

With Vandy looming on the schedule six days away, Auburn opted out of the possibility for even more Freeze-related schadenfreude. Pavia, the junior college transfer who built himself into a folk hero, was robbed of his chance to go 4-0 against a man who was one of the FBS's hottest coaching candidates on two separate occasions.

Instead, the Tigers folded and threw themselves into a increasingly crowded coach hiring cycle. Freeze's inability to win on the plains ensures Auburn won't have a top spot in that pecking order. The fact Freeze was still able to land elite recruits from both the high school and transfer ranks suggest the program's potential remains.

Freeze was unable to mold that potential into production. Auburn was left behind in the process. The silver lining for Freeze is he won't have to entertain the possibility of a fourth-straight loss to a quarterback no one wanted.

Well, that and the $15 million.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Auburn fired Hugh Freeze before Diego Pavia could embarrass him (again)

Reporting by Christian D'Andrea, For The Win / For The Win

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