Over the last three days, college football experienced a flurry of head coaching hires.
Nebraska recalled Matt Rhule back to the college ranks as their new head coach.
Wisconsin stole Luke Fickell away from Cincinnati, Arizona State hired Oregon Ducks offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham and Hugh Freeze returned to the SEC as Auburn’s head coach.
Several other vacancies still exist, including Stanford after David Shaw stepped down.
These decisions were quick and decisive, and apparently without interviews or deliberation.
And therein lies the issue.
Not one Black coach, or a coach of color, reportedly received consideration for these jobs.
Nebraska and Auburn actually replaced their history-making head coaches, Mickey Joseph and Cadillac Williams, on Monday with Rhule and Freeze, respectively. They were never given serious consideration despite the jobs they did.
And yes, Colorado did offer Deion Sanders their head coaching job, but so far that’s the lone exception.
Outside of Colorado, this hiring period exemplifies the biased system that predominantly prefers to recycle white coaches while failing/refusing to give serious consideration to coaches of a darker shade.
And that goes for the media too, which many times fails to inject Black coaches into the discussion.
To be clear, this is not an attack on the recently hired coaches. They have proven resumes and demonstrated success, so it’s nothing personal against them.
Yet, some are given passes for past indiscretions that winning, or certain individuals, excuse.
Look at Kansas’ hiring of Les Miles despite the baggage he brought with him from LSU.
How about Missouri State hiring Bobby Petrino after his infamous motorcycle accident while with Arkansas?
And now Auburn has lured Hugh Freeze back down South where he once built a successful program at Ole Miss. Yet it was in Mississippi that he became embroiled in two scandals that impacted the university.
First, he used a school-issued phone to call an escort service multiple times. Then the NCAA investigated his program and found 15 Level 1 violations which resulted in a two-year bowl ban. In addition, Ole Miss would face a two-game conference suspension if Freeze, fired by the university in 2017, was hired by an SEC school prior to Nov. 30, 2018.
The SEC shunned Freeze and he eventually landed at Liberty in 2019 and built a successful program there.
Most people deserve second chances. Five years later, Freeze is getting his back in the SEC.
And, according to ESPN’s Chris Low, all should be left in the past.
“There will be a lot of talk about Hugh Freeze’s missteps at Ole Miss, but everyone has a past,” tweeted Low. “He’s coached in the SEC, recruited in the SEC and won in the SEC. He’s also beaten Nick Saban in back-to-back seasons. In other words, he checks a lot of boxes for @AuburnFootball.”
In other words, it’s all good because Freeze is a proven winner who took down the almighty Nick Saban twice.
Yet was it all good for the victims of Art Briles’ program or the women who were sexually harassed by Les Miles?
Was it all good when Freeze DMed former Liberty student Chelsea Andrews, a plaintiff who sued Liberty in 2021, alleging the university mishandled sexual assault cases and Title IX issues? Freeze was defending Liberty athletic director Ian McCaw, who was Baylor’s AD when Briles’ program was running wild, but he did it by contacting a plaintiff during legal proceedings.
Could you imagine if Hugh Freeze was Black?
Aside from the fact that Ole Miss would never have hired him to begin with, if he had been involved in not one but two scandals and engaged in suspect behavior, he would have been permanently exiled from coaching.
This is the reality of college football’s biased hiring system.
To be clear- I’m not saying the coaches, athletic directors, university presidents or board members are racist.
Freeze, who replaced interim head coach Cadillac Williams at Auburn, actually gave Williams props when he took his job.
“First, I want to acknowledge Cadillac Williams for the incredible job he did as interim head coach. The impact he made is immeasurable and cannot be overstated,” said Freeze in a statement.
On Tuesday morning, Brett McMurphy of the Action Network reported that Williams agreed to remain with Auburn as an associate head coach.
Yet that doesn’t change the fact that the process is biased and in some cases, too familial. Check out the Auburn-Arkansas State coaching relationship for example.
College football is rooted in tradition and the hiring process exists in the same fashion. As a result, it needs to be fixed for it makes race apparent through the lack of consideration, especially immediate consideration, for coaches of a darker shade.
It’s a process whose comfort lies in deferring to familiar names regardless of baggage.
But we get it.
It all boils down to winning, especially over Nick Saban.
