After much speculation about the vacancy, Auburn hired Hugh Freeze to be the school’s next football coach earlier this week. Though opinions on the hire are rather mixed, Charles Barkley made clear that he still plans to support whoever the coach of the Tigers is.
That being said, the former NBA star and Auburn alum admitted he was hoping to see a different person earn the job: Jackson State coach Deion Sanders.
“I will always support who’s coaching at Auburn,” Barkley told AL.com on Thursday. “I made no secret about it. I was hoping for Deion Sanders, but they went in a different direction.
“I think I said what I always said. I didn’t like the way Bryan Harsin was treated. They put him in a really awkward situation where he couldn’t be successful. Now, we have to get our stuff together to support the new coach 100 percent.”
Freeze, who most recently spent four seasons at Liberty, comes to Auburn with significant baggage. In 2017, it was found that Freeze made phone calls to escort services on his university phone while on recruiting trips as the Ole Miss coach. He resigned in ’16 and did not have another college football job until ’19, when Liberty hired him.
More recently in July 2022, the now-former Liberty coach private-messaged a student who was part of a Title IX lawsuit with the school who says she was a survivor of sexual assault. The student, Chelsea Andrews—who is one of 20 plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit against Liberty—tweeted criticisms of the school and its athletic department. Freeze sent unprompted direct messages to Andrews in defense of athletic director Ian McCaw, who led Baylor’s athletic department during its sexual assault scandal, per Inside Higher Ed.
Despite the controversies involving Freeze, Barkley dismissed the talk of the coach’s transgressions as “noise,” saying that Auburn fans should support Freeze as he transitions into the role.
“One thing about being in the ‘Bible Belt,’ there’s a lot of people around here who think they’ve never made a mistake in their life,” Barkley said. “I never pay attention to that noise, and that’s what it is noise. Ain’t none of us perfect, but for some reason when you’re in the ‘Bible Belt,’ I saw a sign ‘don’t judge anyone.’ They judge everyone.
“You can’t pay that any attention. The guy’s our coach now. We have to support him.”
