Joel Klatt breaks down Auburn job: ‘Expectations don’t line up with reality’
It’s become almost as routine as Saturday kickoffs in the fall: another major college football program is looking for a new head coach. On Sunday, Auburn fired Hugh Freeze after a 10-3 loss to Kentucky, becoming the eighth Power 4 school to make a change this season — and the ninth with an open job.
But while Auburn is one of the few programs to win a national title this century, not everyone sees it as an elite destination. FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt, for one, doesn’t believe it’s among the premier jobs in the country.
“Auburn is one of those places that pulls the trigger often,” Klatt said on his podcast, “The Joel Klatt Show.” “I don’t think Auburn is a great job.”
With Freeze’s firing, Auburn will be on the hunt for its third head coach since the end of the 2020 season. The program took a turn in 2020, which was Gus Malzahn’s last year at the helm, going 6-5 that year. Since then, Auburn has posted four straight losing seasons, with Bryan Harsin getting fired eight games into his second season in 2022. Freeze went 15-19 in his Auburn tenure, including a 6-16 SEC record and a 4-5 mark this season.
Auburn fires Hugh Freeze, where do the Tigers stack up among HC openings? 🤔
Now, Auburn will have to compete with other high-profile programs in order to potentially land a top-level head coach. But Klatt doesn’t believe Auburn’s at the front of the line in the coaching carousel.
“If you look at it and you stack it up against the others — now we’ve got these [nine] Open positions: LSU, Penn State, Florida, Arkansas, UCLA, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech and Stanford. “It’s no better than those top three, LSU, Penn State and Florida, in that order,” Klatt said. “Maybe better than Arkansas. Possibly? And then, better than UCLA, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and Stanford. It’s up there. Probably the fourth or fifth best job available in the current cycle of [nine] “opens.”
Klatt previously said LSU will likely have the best head coach to open this season after firing Brian Kelly due to his resources and recent success. Prior to Kelly’s firing, Penn State’s position was held as the No. 1 vacancy due to the support of the program, the athletic director, recent investments made in the program and its long history of success.
The firing of Brian Kelly appears to have made LSU the best coaching job available in college football. (Photo by Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images)
But there’s another reason why Klatt ranks those two schools ahead of Auburn on the list of head coaching vacancies.
“It’s not a great job if you’re not even the best or biggest or most important program in your state. Sorry, not sorry,” Klatt said. “Auburn has a little brother complex. They do. They’re not Alabama. They’re not even close. And yet, they want to be Alabama.”
“So, they operate from a booster and program perspective as if their expectations are like Alabama. But you’re not Alabama. You’re not. I know they played for a championship against Florida State, but up until the national championship they won, you guys had Cam Newton. You had Cam Newton, and I can’t think of another player in college football who almost single-handedly dragged his team to a title like Cam Newton.”
Auburn has played in the SEC Championship Game once in the last 11 seasons (not including 2025). The Tigers have never made the College Football Playoff and have finished ranked only four times since 2014.
Klatt did not mention any potential targets for Auburn or suggest who might be the best fit. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has already emerged as a popular scalping candidate, though Auburn will likely have to battle LSU, Florida and even Ole Miss itself to get him.
Previously, Klatt mentioned Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, NFL’s Alex Golish, Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea and former Penn State coach James Franklin as candidates for the Florida job — a group that could also represent the field Auburn is considering.
Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin was already a popular name on the coaching circuit. (Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images)
However, regardless of who Auburn hires to replace Freeze, Klatt sees them as fighting a tough, uphill battle.
“The expectations at Auburn are not keeping up with the reality of Auburn. It is clear that this program is not even the best program in their state.”
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