Former Auburn HC Hugh Freeze didn’t flinch when he looked back at the end of his run on The Plains. In a rare, 38-minute sit-down with AuburnSports, he admitted the truth stung.

“It makes me sick that I didn’t deliver a product for the Auburn faithful,” Hugh Freeze told Justin Hokanson in an exclusive 1-on-1 interview. “It doesn’t help to say that we were close because nobody really cares about that. We were, though.”

Fired after a 10-3 home meltdown against Kentucky that dropped Auburn to 4-5, he still believes the program he left behind is built for a leap.

“I do think that team’s got a real shot to make a run next year at the playoffs,” he added. 

But that bold claim sits right next to the real tension point of his departure. 

Because as Hugh Freeze unpacked where things went wrong, QB Jackson Arnold’s name entered the room. The Oklahoma transfer was supposed to elevate Auburn’s offense in 2025. Instead, the HC was fired, he was benched, and a season that started 3-0 spiraled into seven losses in nine games. Yet Freeze wanted one thing clear before folks directed their blame.

“This is not a beat up Jackson deal,” Hugh Freeze said. “It’s never, always the quarterback. There are other factors.”

He pointed to the miscues, the wide-open Cam Coleman touchdown missed at Oklahoma, the eight drops in the Missouri loss, the blown protections and misfires against Georgia. He didn’t deny the misses nor his role either. 

“It didn’t work out to the level that he nor I both expected for him and our team,” Freeze added. “And that’s why I’m sitting here.”

But the numbers tell the fuller story and they’re as conflicted as the season itself.

Jackson Arnold finished with 1,309 passing yards, six touchdowns, two picks, and 311 rushing yards with eight more scores. By November, Ashton Daniels and Deuce Knight were taking snaps while he watched a second straight season slip away just like his Oklahoma year, when he split time with freshman Michael Hawkins despite starting early. And that instability paved the way for Auburn’s next era.

With Hugh Freeze gone and DJ Durkin finishing the season, Auburn turned to USF’s Alex Golesh as its new HC. The former HC believes the playoff runway is there. Golesh now has the keys to prove if Freeze was right, or it was just optimism on his way out.