Kevin Scarbinsky: Hugh Freeze’s humble brag

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Hugh Freeze explains a mature decision with a humble brag
The days of head coaches turning over play-calling duties completely to an offensive coordinator and not monitoring those calls probably ended with the 1997 Iron Bowl. That night, trying to protect a late lead and run out the clock, Alabama threw a screen pass. Auburn forced a fumble and recovered it. The Tigers turned the turnover into a game-winning field goal.
Alabama offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, who would go on to bigger and better things, called the screen. Alabama head coach Mike Dubose, in an early example of what would become a string of dubious decisions, admitted he was unaware of the call.
That won’t be the case with Auburn’s new staff. Hugh Freeze has a strong track record of calling plays himself, particularly against Nick Saban defenses, and though he’s delegating those duties primarily to offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery, he will remain aware and involved.
Freeze explained his decision with a tremendous humble brag.
“The great thing is … I want to say this the right way. I think once upon a time I was probably one of the better play-callers in college football. Obviously, better players make you a better play-caller.
“I don’t know that I was the greatest play-caller or one of the best play-callers the last few years at Liberty. I managed the game really well and gave our kids a chance to obviously win some huge games, and we were really good on defense, and I kind of played to that.
“But coming back (to the SEC) knowing what was all-encompassing to bring Auburn back, sitting in the chair that I have to sit in, I needed help. I think the first priority was, man, hire somebody that does and believes exactly what I believe offensively, which Philip does.”
Given that Freeze was found lacking in his oversight of the entire program during his Ole Miss tenure, which led to an NCAA probation that included a bowl ban, this decision shows growth, humility and wisdom. He simply has too many other things to do to run an offense at peak efficiency while leading a program in serious need of a reset.
But if one of the next few Iron Bowls comes down to a critical play call gone wrong, Freeze may not make the call, but he will know it and approve it in advance – and answer for it afterward for decades to come. Just ask Dubose.
Nick Saban’s mind games don’t always work
Ask most people to name the smartest position group on a football team, and they’ll say quarterback. Ask me, and I’ll go off-script and choose the offensive line. From street smarts to book smarts, from insight to informed opinion, from Auburn’s Yann Cowart in the ‘80s to Alabama’s Barrett Jones in the last decade, it’s been my experience that the men up front have a lot going on upstairs.
Alabama tackle JC Latham reinforced that opinion Wednesday at SEC Media Days. While most reporters here in Nashville focused on his bold prediction that the Crimson Tide is going to go undefeated and win the national championship - Coach Saban on Line 1, JC - I was fascinated by Latham’s insight into two occasions when his coach’s message didn’t get through to the team.
Both occasions came as Alabama prepared for Texas A&M, then failed to play up to its standard. The Tide lost to the Aggies in 2021 in College Station and barely escaped another upset last season in Tuscaloosa. Latham put his finger on what went wrong.
In 2021, he noted, A&M had lost two straight games before Alabama’s visit “so I think as a group, we didn’t think they’d be ready to play us.”
That violated Saban’s core principle of focusing on your job and concerning yourself only with the things you can control.
In 2022, star quarterback Bryce Young was unable to play against Texas A&M after getting hurt against Arkansas.
“I don’t think we were mentally prepared for him not to play,” Latham said. “I think we have to do a better job at understanding that anything can happen, anybody can go down at any given moment, they may not play the next game or however it may go. I think that comes from experience. Both games had a unique situation to them.”
Next man up is easier said than done when the man down is a Heisman winner, but as Latham explained, “Experience is life’s greatest teacher.”
Your children will be lucky if any of their teachers once played on the offensive line.
Nick Saban
Not saying (Jetgate), just saying
Jimbo Fisher has arrived at a crossroads. Texas A&M’s big cigars have to be getting tired of throwing good money after bad, of paying Nick Saban prices for Bryan Harsin results.
Fisher’s answer to A&M’s descent from 9-1 in 2020 to 8-4 in 2021 to 5-7 in 2022 - a dreadful 2-6 in the SEC - just his second losing season in 13 years as a head coach: offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino.
The last SEC head coach to turn to Petrino to juice his offense and save his job: Tommy Tuberville, who fired his offensive coordinator and friend Noel Mazzone after a mediocre 2001 season.
Petrino did exactly that during his one season on the Plains before earning his first head coaching job at Louisville. He did much more a year later in 2003, meeting secretly with an Auburn delegation devoted to bringing him back as Tuberville’s replacement.
That chapter in the Auburn family storybook is known as Jetgate.
It was fascinating to hear Fisher bristle at SEC Media Days at the suggestion that he might have to handle a “volatile” situation with Petrino on the staff if things go haywire.
“Volatile? Why would it be in a volatile situation?” Fisher said. “As coaches, have you ever been in any staff room that doesn’t have arguments or disagreements?”
Just the same, Fisher has called plays his entire career as a head coach. As has Petrino. One of the criticisms of Fisher’s Texas A&M tenure is that his old-school offense has grown stale. Hiring Petrino seemed to be a grudging admission that the Aggies needed fresh ideas on that side of the ball. Fisher said Petrino calls plays “as well as anybody in college football” but danced around questions about turning play-calling duties over to his new coordinator.
“I’m not going to get into what we’re doing, how we’re doing it,” Fisher said. “Again, I’m not trying to avoid anything. I just don’t want to create -- you create advantages and narratives out there for what goes on. … Hopefully, he’ll call the game.”
Hopefully?
Hopefully, if the Aggies pile up points behind quarterback Conner Weigman and Petrino earns another head coaching opportunity down the road, he’ll be more loyal to Fisher than he was to Tuberville. It’s worth noting, though, that Tuberville’s most successful offensive coordinator at Auburn wasn’t Petrino. It was Al Borges. It did help that Borges got to call plays for Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown.
Chances of Greg Sankey completing his Hail Mary? Nil
Greg Sankey is almost always the smartest man in the room. That’s not a sarcastic suggestion of unwarranted arrogance but an honest appreciation for his intelligence on an impressive array of subjects.
Until the subject turns to Name, Image and Likeness. Then this unique, creative thinker parrots the company line in what sounds ominously like an old-school group effort to prolong an antiquated system of amateurism headed the way of one-platoon football.
The lowlight of Sankey’s State of the Conference address Monday kicking off SEC Media Days in Nashville was the latest in a series of admissions that the NCAA and its member institutions are incapable of governing themselves in this brave new world of athlete empowerment.
“The reality is,” Sankey said, “only Congress can fully address the challenges facing college athletics.”
Congress, which is overpopulated with people who don’t know anything about college athletics or don’t care about it. Congress, where the hate is neither clean nor old-fashioned. Congress, where the one former coach on the roster has expressed more interest in keeping coaches in control than welcoming players to the table.
Sankey was no doubt sincere when he said, “We seek the empowerment of college athletes while also protecting them from bad actors.” There are shady characters masquerading as agents offering players one-sided deals in the NIL space. But the actions of the SEC’s 14 schools in their recent march on Washington spoke louder than his words. Florida was the only school in the conference to include student-athletes on the trip as each school’s traveling party met with members of its state’s Congressional delegation.
“The NCAA cannot fix all of these issues,” Sankey said. “The courts cannot resolve all of these issues. The states cannot resolve all of these issues, nor can the conferences. Whether congressional action is achievable is a matter of debate. Much debate.”
On the contrary, there’s not much debate on whether Congress, in its current iteration with an election year looming, can address these issues in an equitable, non-partisan manner. That outcome is as likely as Mississippi State and Vanderbilt meeting in the SEC Championship Game.
Meanwhile, the courts continue to resolve these issues in favor of the players getting a larger piece of an expanding pie. It’s past time for the leaders of intercollegiate athletics to put their heads together, acknowledge that the entire system needs a reset, invite players to the table and figure it out. Or get new leaders.