Auburn’s Crisis PR Backfired on Freeze Hiring

**Auburn’s Hugh Freeze Hiring Shrouded in Controversy After Pre-Emptive Crisis PR Firm Engagement**

AUBURN, AL – Hugh Freeze’s tenure as Auburn University’s head football coach, officially commencing on November 25, 2022, was reportedly facing an uphill battle even before the announcement was made public. In a move that observers say backfired, the university had apparently engaged a crisis public relations firm, Navigator, based out of Toronto, in the week leading up to Freeze’s highly anticipated hiring.

The involvement of Navigator, initially reported by Travis Reier around November 21, and later confirmed by *The Athletic* on November 23, immediately raised questions about the university’s strategy. The consensus among many was that bringing in a crisis PR firm *before* the hire was even official served as a tacit admission that Auburn knew they were making a controversial pick and were already attempting to manage the expected negative narrative.

The firm’s engagement was seemingly an effort to “manage the narrative” around Freeze’s well-documented checkered past. Freeze’s coaching career had been punctuated by significant scandals that made him a polarizing figure. His dramatic resignation from Ole Miss in July 2017 came amid NCAA violations and what became known as the “escalate-gate” phone scandal, where a pattern of calls to an escort service from a university-issued phone was uncovered during an investigation into his phone records.

After a stint at Liberty University, further controversies emerged. In 2021 and 2022, leading up to his departure for Auburn, Freeze faced scrutiny for sending unsolicited direct messages (DMs) to a female student, which prompted an internal investigation at Liberty.

While Freeze’s impressive track record as a winning coach and his offensive prowess were undoubtedly attractive to Auburn, the pre-emptive engagement of Navigator inadvertently highlighted these past issues. Critics argued that instead of mitigating potential backlash, the move amplified it, making the hire appear even more questionable and undermining Auburn’s own messaging from the outset. It created a perception that the university was more focused on spin than on fully vetting or addressing the implications of Freeze’s history.

For many, the public relations firm’s involvement was a misstep, signaling that Auburn was fully aware of the public relations challenge Freeze presented, and rather than confronting it head-on with transparency, they opted for a pre-emptive damage control strategy that ultimately drew more attention to the very issues they hoped to minimize. The controversy set an uneasy tone for Freeze’s arrival on the Plains, suggesting that even before coaching his first game, the narrative surrounding his leadership would remain under intense scrutiny.