Hugh Freeze: Five things to know about the potential Gamecocks coach
South Carolina is looking for a new head football coach after Will Muschamp was fired on Sunday.
One of the names most frequently mentioned as a potential replacement for Muschamp is Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze. Here are five tidbits about Freeze.
Unique coaching path
Before arriving at Liberty, where he currently has the Flames at 8-0 with a No. 21 ranking, Freeze spent five seasons at Ole Miss. He became one of the sport’s most high-profile coaches thanks to the Rebels’ upsets of mighty Alabama, a couple of major bowl wins — and a unique backstory.
Freeze never played college football, almost a prerequisite in the coaching world. Instead, he worked at a high school — Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, Tennessee — coaching a hugely successful girls’ basketball program for over a decade while also rising up to be the football team’s head coach. From there, he made the leap to the college game, spending a few years as an Ole Miss assistant before getting a head coaching job at NAIA Lambuth, followed by a stop at Arkansas State. Only in 2012 did he return to Ole Miss for his first Power 5 head coaching job.
Skeletons in his closet
Freeze’s success at Ole Miss was ultimately overshadowed by scandal. The NCAA charged the Rebels with committing 15 Level I violations under Freeze’s watch, alleging impermissible benefits from boosters and a lack of institutional control on the university’s part, leading to a toxic culture. That led to a two-year bowl ban, recruiting restrictions, a loss of scholarships and more than two dozen vacated wins.
But what ultimately led to his resignation in 2017 wasn’t the NCAA sanctions. During the course of a legal battle with another former coach, it came to light that Freeze had used a university-issued cell phone to call an escort service during a recruiting trip. That led to an investigation that found a “pattern of personal misconduct,” Ole Miss AD Ross Bjork said.
Persona non grata in the SEC?
Freeze’s departure from Ole Miss was messy, but his talent as a coach is such that multiple SEC programs quickly expressed interest in adding him to their staff, including powerhouse Alabama and coach Nick Saban. But according to a report from AL.com, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey discouraged teams from hiring Freeze given his past, a report that Saban later didn’t deny.
Later reports from the league office indicated that Freeze’s banishment from the SEC wasn’t permanent, and Freeze’s success at Liberty make it seem inevitable that he’ll be given a second chance somewhere. But ESPN senior writer Ryan McGee recently said there’s still resistance within the SEC office to letting Freeze be a head coach in the conference again. And of course, South Carolina AD Ray Tanner and President Bob Caslen would have to be on board with taking a risk on Freeze in the first place.
Instant success at Liberty
Freeze, who frequently discussed his Christian faith while at Ole Miss, made his return to coaching at Liberty, an evangelical Christian school that has poured tens of millions of dollars into its athletics department, especially the football program, as of late. In his introductory press conference, Freeze once more pointed to his faith as a key tenet in building a program that joined the FBS in 2018.
And that match has paid dividends. In his first season in 2019, Freeze made headlines for coaching a game from a hospital bed, but he also led the Flames to an 8-5 record, including a bowl win. And the 2020 campaign has been even better thus far. The Flames are undefeated and ranked for the first time ever, defeating Virginia Tech and getting a shot at NC State this weekend.
Offensive guru
Tanner has said getting an offensive-minded head coach will be high on his priority list in replacing Muschamp, and Freeze checks that box. Liberty ranks in the top 20 nationally in yards per game, yards per play and points per game, led by a rushing attack that averages more than 250 yards per game and a quarterback in Malik Willis who has 24 combined touchdowns against just one interception and one lost fumble.
At Ole Miss, his offenses ranked in the top 50 in the country in yards per play and yards per game all but one season each, highlighted by a 2015 season in which the Rebels were in the national top 10 in yards per game, yards per play and points per game. He has a reputation as an innovator, a guy that likes to run up-tempo, spread-style offenses that can put up big numbers. South Carolina’s offense mostly struggled under Muschamp, even when it tried to go fast, so Freeze is intriguing from that standpoint alone.
This story was originally published November 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Hugh Freeze: Five things to know about the potential Gamecocks coach."
