Well, it wouldn’t be an insane coaching carousel if Auburn wasn’t involved.
Hugh Freeze was officially fired as the head coach of Auburn on Sunday, coming less than 24 hours after a dismal 10-3 loss to Kentucky where chants of “Fire Hugh” rang throughout Jordan-Hare Stadium afterwards. Freeze’s three-year run on the Plains never got off the ground as he posted a 15-19 overall record, a 6-16 record in SEC play, and just one bowl appearance. The now former Tiger head man will make $15.8 million to not coach the team and that adds to the already record buyout total during this coaching carousel.
With Freeze’s firing, Auburn became the 13th program to part ways with their head coach this season and the fourth school in the SEC to make an in-season change. The Tigers have not experienced a 10-win season since 2017 and will now be in search of their third head coach since the firing of Gus Malzahn at the end of the 2020 campaign. The volatility of the job has been well documented, but as Gene Chizik and Malzahn proved in the 2010’s, the program can reach national championship heights when everything is aligned.
Below, we’ll throw out a handful of names that could be in the mix for the Auburn job in the coming weeks.
Jon Sumrall
Sumrall is the hottest Group of Five name in this coaching cycle and the broad consensus is that he will be leading an SEC program at the start of the 2026 season. He has SEC bonafides with assistant coaching stints at both Ole Miss and his alma mater Kentucky before landing his first head coaching gig at Troy in 2022. He ended up leading the Trojans to back-to-back Sun Belt championships on the strength of defenses that ranked 7th and 28th in SP+ during both of his years in lower Alabama. Sumrall then parlayed that into the Tulane gig, where he led the Green Wave to an appearance in last year’s American Championship Game and currently has them in the thick of a competitive conference title race this season.
The fit at Auburn is obvious. Sumrall is a Huntsville native and his familiarity with the state of Alabama will be an asset for the program in both high school and transfer portal talent acquisition. Freeze was able get several of the state’s top prospects like Cam Coleman to commit to the Tigers over the past few years, but the squandering of said talent is a central reason why he’s no longer in charge. Should he successfully retain some of the talent on his roster, Sumrall could get things turned around fairly quickly on the Plains and have a similar trajectory as Texas A&M’s Mike Elko, another defensive-minded head coach. Auburn would have plenty of competition for his services though, so the school’s leaders would have to act quickly.
James Franklin
At the rate these major coach firings are happening, Penn State axing Franklin following the Northwestern game feels like eons ago. The former Nittany Lion head coach has made it clear that he intends to coach next season and a number of programs across the entire country will be lining up for his services over the next few weeks. Much has been made of his poor record in big games, but this is still a head coach who had over 120 career wins and had the Nittany Lions on the doorstep of a national title game appearance less than one year ago.
Auburn would kill for a coach who’d consistently put the program in the 9-10 win range every year and Franklin could potentially do that at one of the upper tier jobs of the SEC. He also coincidentally has experience getting other Auburn coaches fired, with his 2012 triumph over the Tigers at Vanderbilt leading to Gene Chizik’s eventual ouster and then doing the same to Bryan Harsin as Penn State’s coach in 2022. If you can’t beat ‘em, hire ‘em.
Alex Golesh
Golesh is another rising name out of the Group of Five and like Sumrall, he has USF right in the thick of the American title race and a possible spot in the College Football Playoff. The 41-year-old spent years as an assistant at spots like Illinois, Iowa State, and UCF before following Josh Heupel to Tennessee as his offensive coordinator. The Volunteer offense exploded during their second season in 2022, finishing second in offensive SP+ and most notably out-dueling Alabama to end their long drought in the rivalry. That earned him the USF job, where he quickly turned around a program that had won four games combined in the three seasons prior to his arrival. Back-to-back bowl game appearances was followed up with an electric start to this year’s campaign where the Bulls pummeled Boise State to open the season before stunning Florida in Gainesville the following week.
The combination of offensive play-calling, program building, and connection to players would make Golesh an interesting choice for Auburn, even if he doesn’t have strong connections to the state. If Auburn can’t secure Sumrall and still wants one of the up-and-coming faces of the sport, the USF coach would be a solid option.
Dan Mullen
If SEC experience is something the Tigers are looking for, they could always go pry Dan Mullen out of the desert. The former Florida offensive coordinator spent nine seasons at Mississippi State, where he left Starkville as the winningest head coach in program history. He followed that up with a decent four-year run at UF where he posted a 34-15 record, but was ultimately fired for not living up to the lofty standards in Gainesville. After a few years broadcasting at ESPN, he has re-emerged at UNLV and has the Rebels in the mix for the Group of Five’s playoff spot.
There’s an easy connection to be made here as Auburn athletic director John Cohen was both Mullen’s contemporary as Mississippi State’s head baseball coach and later his boss as MSU’s AD. A common critique of Mullen was his struggles on the recruiting front. But if Cohen can surround him with a strong support staff that can handle that while the head coach focuses on X’s and O’s, then this marriage could possibly work out just fine.
Brent Key
Auburn could also go a few hours up I-85 and pull Key, who currently has Georgia Tech for the ACC Championship Game and a possible CFP berth. The Tech alum was named the interim head coach of his alma mater following Geoff Collins’ firing in 2022 and did well enough to earn the full-time job at the end of the season. He hasn’t looked back since, turning the Yellow Jackets into a tough, physical program that has been a thorn in the side for nearly every program that they’ve come across in the ACC. They’ve even gone toe-to-toe with Georgia over the last few seasons, gradually closing the gap of a rivalry that has been one-sided since the turn of the millennium.
If Auburn wants a no-nonsense, no frills ball coach that is almost the opposite of Freeze, then Key is their guy.
Glenn Schumann
If Auburn wants to go the young coordinator route, then it wouldn’t have to look far in pulling Georgia’s DC Schumann out of Athens. Starting his career as a GA at his alma mater Alabama, he followed Kirby Smart to Georgia in 2016 and worked his way up to being a co-DC with Dan Lanning. It was there where the two helped assemble the monstrous defenses that brought back-to-back national titles to Athens a few years ago and you’re seeing several of those same players having impactful careers in the NFL right now.
Given the success Lanning is having at Oregon, it wouldn’t be a surprise for Auburn to try to duplicate that with Schumann. It would also continue the tradition within the Auburn-Georgia rivalry of both programs pulling a coach from the other school. Legendary Georgia head coach Vince Dooley was an Auburn grad and legendary Auburn head coach Pat Dye came from UGA.
Lane Kiffin
Kiffin’s name will continue to come up in these openings and Auburn will surely be no different. In fact, the coaching veteran was Auburn’s top choice back in 2022 and by multiple accounts nearly jumped to the Plains before deciding at the last second to stay at Ole Miss. Given where he has the Rebels as a legitimate playoff contender this year, some could argue that he’s elevated Ole Miss to the same level of an Auburn and wouldn’t have a reason to leave. But it wouldn’t hurt the Tiger brass to make that call again and see if there’s still mutual interest.
