The Auburn Tigers are specialists at hiring and firing head football coaches. They've ditched two head coaches in the last four years and they may add a third to the list fairly soon, if Hugh Freeze doesn't get his act together at least.
The good thing about having so much experience is that you learn what not to do. Did the Tigers learn how to hire a coach who would stick? No. But they did learn how to make it a lot easier to get rid of one in the current college football landscape.
Auburn would owe Freeze a $20.3 million buyout if they fired him this year. However, unlike with Gus Malzhan and Bryan Harsin, most of that money won't be due within 30 days. Freeze's contract includes language that allows the Tigers to spread out the buyout into monthly payments over the remainder of the deal. This is all according to USA Today's Blake Toppmeyer.
Hugh Freeze's buyout is a lot easier to stomach because Auburn are buyout masters
So instead of having to pay a huge chunk now. They can cut bait and allot about $4.9 million per year for the next years to getting rid of their Freeze problem.
For a school still paying off Harsin's buyout of $15.6 million and who only just finished paying off Malzhan's $21.5 million, that's a pretty savvy move.
Now, if only Auburn could figure out how to make a buyout unnecessary. That's the goal.
There are a lot of programs out there who will persist with coaches they know aren't working because the buyout is too costly to bear. The Tigers aren't one of them.
So the clock is absolutely ticking on Freeze, who is 2-5 and in the middle of a four-game losing streak. Even getting to four wins would require going to Kentucky and winning on the road. Auburn can't even tag Vanderbilt as an auto win because the Commodores are suddenly a ranked team. Whodda thunk it!