Hugh Freeze details talks with Nick Saban about joining Alabama staff

Hugh Freeze is back in the SEC, taking over an Auburn program desperate to get back to winning ways. After a successful tenure at Ole Miss had a tumultuous ending, Freeze rebuilt himself at Liberty. He has returned to the conference seven years later and is expected to have an immediate impact.

Auburn is happy to have Freeze but he nearly ended up on the other side of the state. Nick Saban reportedly was looking to hire Freeze on a couple of different occasions. Plenty of Alabama offensive coordinators have left the program and Freeze was viewed as a potential candidate.

Reports stated Alabama ever hiring him were blocked but Freeze did confirm there were talks with Saban on the matter. But once Freeze accepted and settled into the Liberty job, he told Saban making the move to Tuscaloosa was just not possible.

“I wouldn’t say (the SEC blocked it),” Freeze said. “How real it was, that’s probably a question for Coach Saban. But he was so good to me in my two years out. Truthfully, it was when I got to Liberty that there were a couple of occasions that Coach Saban and I had great conversations about that. They just seemed to never work out for one reason or another.

“The most real was after I got to Liberty and his coordinator left. That was very, very hard on me there. But I had already gotten there and hired a few people. That would have been very difficult for me to leave. I think Coach understood that.”

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