Does Auburn football coach Hugh Freeze play too much golf? He addresses the issue

USA Today

3 days ago

AUBURN, Ala. — While he has allegedly sworn off social media since taking over the Auburn football program, even Hugh Freeze can't avoid the recent noise surrounding his program's recruiting struggles — or his golf game.
During an appearance on the "See Ball Get Ball" podcast with former Georgia linebacker and ESPN analyst David Pollack, Freeze couldn't shy away from it if he wanted to, fielding questions pertaining to golf and his program's recruiting slide.
"Everybody seems to like to talk about my golf game," were Freeze's first words to Pollack, who asked him about golf with a grin to lead off Freeze's nearly half-hour-long appearance.
"I enjoy playing it to get away," Freeze added later. "But what people don't realize is, probably, you know, I assure you I've never missed a camp day, or a recruiting day. But if camp got over at 3 o'clock one day, and Jill (Freeze) and I go out at 4:30, we absolutely might do that. And I'm not apologizing for that part of it, but my focus is 100% on getting Auburn in that win column this fall."
According to a report from AL.com, Freeze posted 10 rounds to the USGA's Golf Handicap Information Network (GHIN) in the month of June, which was more than any other college football coach who made their scores public.
Auburn's 2026 class, which came out of the gate with No. 1 rankings nationally, has tanked over the past year. Currently, the Tigers' class ranks no better than No. 71 in the country, and it's the worst-rated class in the SEC by consensus.
Freeze echoed comments he made earlier this month as to Auburn's recruiting struggles, saying "there's a lot of people right now that are operating on a different set of rules on what their interpretation is of this settlement, and how you should operate."
"I'm going to operate in the manner that our administration has interpreted it," Freeze said. "We'll see. I think it's a long-game play for us that I think is going to work out in our favor, because we're doing it very transparent and the way we believe the settlement is written to operate."
Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at [e-mail] or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @colereporter. To support Adam's work, please subscribe to the Montgomery Advertiser.