Sources: Auburn fires Freeze after 6-16 SEC mark

Coach Hugh Freeze, whose 15-19 record in his two-plus seasons at Auburn was capped by a listless home loss to Kentucky on Saturday, has been fired, sources told ESPN's Pete Thamel and Mark Schlabach on Sunday.

Freeze will be owed approximately $15 million in buyout money.

Defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin is expected to serve in an interim role, sources told ESPN.

Much of the SEC offseason spotlight focused on Freeze, 56, only heightening the need for a strong start for the Tigers. In his time at Auburn, he had a 6-16 mark in the SEC, and his tenure was marked by excruciating home losses to New Mexico State, Cal, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Oklahoma.

Freeze, who received a prostate cancer diagnosis earlier this year, improved the roster headed into this season, landing consecutive top-10 recruiting classes. He also added key transfers such as quarterback Jackson Arnold (Oklahoma) and wide receiver Eric Singleton Jr. (Georgia Tech). Combined with a manageable 2025 schedule, and a contract that ran through the 2028 season, it seemed the pieces were in place for Freeze to author a breakthrough.

"I think it's as settled as we've been as a program, the continuity of our staff, the pieces of our staff that we've added and what we've been able to do in building our roster in high school recruiting and in the portal," Freeze told ESPN in April. "Now, we've got to go compete and win some more games, but I don't feel any sense of panic. We're on our way to getting where we want to be and where we should be."

The Tigers never got there. A 3-0 start in the nonconference portion of the schedule, including an impressive 38-24 win over Baylor on opening night, quickly fizzled in league play. The Tigers were competitive in their first four SEC games, but they ended up on the losing side of all four, including a deflating 23-17 loss to Missouri on Oct. 18, a home effort that the Tigers led 17-10 in the fourth quarter in front of a primetime audience.

A comeback win on the road, at Arkansas, soon followed, but the Tigers were unable to maintain momentum. Ultimately, on Saturday night at home, a listless 10-3 loss to Kentucky that came complete with "Fire Hugh!" chants in the second half, proved to be the end as the Tigers fell to 4-5 overall and 1-5 in the SEC.

"At the end of the day, I'm frustrated, too," Freeze said after the loss. "We all know that when we sign up for this. We accept it. I love what we're doing here, but we haven't gotten the results."

Freeze ends his run without recording a winning season at Auburn in three tries. In fact, the Tigers last had a winning season in 2020, when they were 6-5. And they've won more than eight games only twice (2017 and 2019) since playing for the national championship in 2013.

"I wish I could ask for patience, but that's not something that people want to give in this day and time, and I understand that," Freeze said Saturday night. "I just think we're so dang close."