Auburn’s Hiring of Hugh Freeze Brings Coach’s Past Red Flags Back Into the Spotlight - Sports Illustrated

In the past few days since reports of Auburn’s hiring of Hugh Freeze began to surface, the football coach’s past transgressions have returned to the forefront, from NCAA violations under his watch at Ole Miss to his social media use.

The overall reaction was part of the pushback to Freeze’s hire on social media and in the email inboxes of athletic director John Cohen, school president Chris Roberts and other Auburn board of trustees members.

When the program was under investigation for NCAA violations, Freeze and others at the school tried to spin the situation to recruits and media as primarily an issue involving other sports or his predecessor, Houston Nutt.

When the lengthy NCAA notice of allegations came out, that turned out to be false: The violations yielded a two-year postseason ban and major recruiting restrictions.

“I really don’t know the magnitude of the backlash because, believe it or not, I just hadn’t been on any social media in the last three or four weeks,” Freeze said.

This past weekend, however, when reports around Auburn hiring Freeze increased, a tweet from a former Liberty University student put Freeze’s Twitter use into the spotlight.

According to sources close to the Auburn coaching search, Freeze agreed to relinquish control of his social media accounts.

When asked later Tuesday to clarify his comments regarding who has access to his social media, Freeze said in a statement to SI: “I have to focus on a lot more important things at Auburn than social media.

When that full contract is signed, it could include guardrails around various actions, including social media use, in order to protect the university.

Eli Drinkwitz’s deal at Missouri says he cannot “… make statements to the media or in any public forum that is clearly contrary to public convention and morals, or commit any act that may foreseeably bring Coach or the university into public contempt, scorn or ridicule, or that seriously offends public morals or decency as a result of such conduct or act.”

While it may seem overprotective for a football coach to have to agree to a clause that stipulates social media use, Freeze will be one of the highest-paid public employees in the state of Alabama (his salary is over $6.5 million) and arguably Auburn University’s highest-profile front-facing ambassador