Freeze came under a lot of heat because he was soon at the golf course more than on the recruiting trail, and had fallen behind his SEC colleagues like rival Alabama.
Auburn is currently ranked near the bottom of the SEC in recruiting, which has a lot in the industry raising eyebrows, including other coaches like South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer.
At his annual “Birdies for Beamer” golf tournament, Beamer joked about Freeze’s situation Monday.
When asked about his best golf score this summer, Beamer declined to say.
“I’ll get in trouble,” Beamer said. “There’s another coach that’s gotten in trouble in this league. I saw Kirby (Smart) on vacation and he asked if I was playing golf. I said, ‘Yeah.’ He’s like, ‘Whatever you do, don’t post your score, man.’ But I’m not going to get into specifics on that. I hit it pretty good this summer. But that’s the problem with my golf game is I played Friday, and I put the clubs up and I won’t touch them again until late January, early February. But I hit it OK.”
Fans and the media alike came down hard on Freeze, who they felt should have been on the recruiting trail and not on the golf course.
Freeze tried to defend himself at SEC Media Days a couple of weeks ago.
“I really haven’t had to defend it,” Freeze said. “You know, it’s something I enjoy doing, but I assure you it does not take away from my time working to take Auburn back to the top of the college football world.”
Freeze’s ordeal was enough to keep other coaches like Beamer quiet about their golf game.
