Hugh Freeze enters his first season with the Auburn Tigers after a successful four-year run at Liberty. Freeze joins Auburn a year after the team finished the 2022 season with a 5-7 record with previous head coach Bryan Harsin getting fired after eight games.
Outside of two assistant coaches returning, Freeze brings in an almost new coaching staff to the program.
Auburn Tigers Coaching Staff
Head Coach, Hugh Freeze
There’s no denying seeing the resume of Hugh Freeze as he has proven to be a winner everywhere he has coached. His head coaching career began at Division II’s Lambuth Eagles where he soared to a 20-5 record in two seasons winning the Mid-South Conference title in 2009.
After one season as offensive coordinator at Arkansas State, he was promoted to head coach where he would only spend one season as head coach. The Red Wolves went 10-2 and won the Sun Belt Conference title in 2011.
Ole Miss came calling as he was named the head coach of the Rebels starting the 2012 season. He spent five seasons with the program with a 39-25 record during that time. Due to recruiting violations against Freeze and the school, he ended up resigning prior to the 2017 season.
Two years after the Ole Miss run, Freeze took over Liberty in 2019 as their head coach recording winning seasons in all four seasons at the program. He went 34-15 going 3-0 in bowl games in that span. His success there landed him the Auburn job prior to this season.
Offensive Coordinator/QB Coach, Philip Montgomery
Freeze brings in experience with Philip Montgomery joining the team as their offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. His first eight years of coaching were in the high school level coaching offensive with some position experience with quarterback and running back.
2003 was the first time he joined the college ranks coaching at Houston starting with coaching their quarterbacks and running backs. He eventually was promoted to co-offensive coordinator for 2007 at Houston.
Baylor added him as their co-offensive coordinator as well as coaching their quarterbacks and running backs from 2008 until 2011. Starting in 2012, he went solo as offensive coordinator with the Bears for another three seasons with the program.
After leading successful offenses at Baylor, Montgomery landed his first head coaching job with Tulsa in 2015. He was the head coach for the Golden Hurricanes for eight seasons recording 43 wins and 53 losses. Montgomery helped the team go to one conference championship, four bowl appearances, and two bowl wins during that span.
- Tarleton State (Student Assistant, 1994)
- Celeste High School (Offensive Coordinator/QB/RB, 1995)
- Stephenville JR High School (QB/RB, 1996-2001)
- Denton High School (Offensive Coordinator, 2002)
- Houston (QB/RB, 2003-2006)
- Houston (Co-Offensive Coordinator/QB/RB, 2007)
- Baylor (Co-Offensive Coordinator/QB/RB, 2008-2011)
- Baylor (Offensive Coordinator/QB, 2012-2014)
- Tulsa (Head Coach, 2015-2022)
Defensive Coordinator, Ron Roberts
Ron Roberts enters his first season at Auburn after over 30 years of coaching experience. He has served head coaching job in high school at two different schools with most of his career being either a head coach or a defensive coordinator.
At the college level, he was a head coach for Delta State and Southeastern Louisiana from 2007 until 2017. Between the two schools, Roberts had a combined record of 89-45 winning six conference titles and six playoff berths. He only had one season in that span where his team finished under .500.
After his head coaching run in 2017, he joined Louisiana’s coaching staff as their defensive coordinator in 2018 and 2019. Baylor came calling as he became defensive coordinator for the Bears from 2020 until 2022.
- Houston High School (TN) (Defensive Coordinator, 1990-1993)
- Burroughs High School (CA) (Head Coach, 1994-1996)
- Greensboro (Defensive Coordinator, 1997)
- Tusculum (Defensive Coordinator, 1998-2002)
- Texas State (Defensive Coordinator, 2003)
- Whitney High School (CA) (Head Coach, 2004)
- Delta State (Defensive Coordinator, 2005-2006)
- Delta State (Head Coach, 2007-2011)
- Southeastern Louisiana (Head Coach, 2012-2017)
- Louisiana (Defensive Coordinator, 2018-2019)
- Baylor (Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers, 2020-2022)
Associate Head Coach/RB Coach, Carnell Williams
Carnell Williams is one of two coaches who returned to Auburn’s new-look coaching staff. Williams’ coaching career began at Henderson State coaching running backs. He also served as an assistant coach for West Georgia, IMG Academy, and the Birmingham Iron of the AAF.
After a successful career playing at Auburn as a running back, he joined the Tigers’ coaching staff in 2019 as their running backs coach. Last season, he was named interim head coach for the last four games of the season after the previous coach Bryan Harsin was relieved of his duties. Williams finished with a 2-2 record in those last four games.
Tight Ends Coach, Ben Aigamaua
Ben Aigamaua joined the Auburn program back in December to coach their tight ends. Aigamaua has been an assistant coach for 13 years. He started as a graduate assistant at Lambuth where he was first introduced to Freeze playing and coaching under him. In 2011, he was also an assistant coach for Louisiana Tech.
His longest stretches came from 2012-2018 where he served in multiple roles at Ole Miss where he and Freeze were together for five years. In 2019, Aigamaua followed Freeze to Liberty to coach their tight ends for four years.
Linebackers Coach, Josh Aldridge
Josh Aldridge is another former Freeze assistant who followed him to Auburn to help coach the defense. His career started at West Georgia from 2014 through 2017 coaching their defensive line and recruiting coordinator. In 2018, Aldridge landed the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach job at Lenoir-Rhyne.
Freeze hired Aldridge to Liberty in 2019 to coach their defensive line for the first three seasons at the school. He would be promoted to co-defensive coordinator in 2021 serving that role for two seasons. Linebackers were added under him in 2022 at Liberty as well.
Wide Receivers Coach, Marcus Davis
Marcus Davis is no stranger to coaching and playing at Auburn. In 2018 and 2019, he was working for the Tigers helping their running backs and kick returners as an offensive analyst as well as doing player personnel and development work. He also worked for Florida State, Hawaii, and Georgia Southern helping with wide receivers before coming back to Auburn.
Secondary/Safeties Coach, Zac Etheridge
Zac Etheridge is the other assistant coach back on the Auburn coaching staff from last season. Etheridge’s career began at Penn State when Bill O’Brien was head coach as he has coached at Georgia Tech, Western Carolina, Louisiana, and Houston. He started as secondary coach at Auburn before being promoted to associate head coach last year.
Defensive Line Coach, Jeremy Garrett
Jeremy Garrett got his start in coaching at the high school level including being a head coach at Ensworth in 2018, going 7-5 in his lone season. In 2019, he coached at Vanderbilt and then spent the next two seasons in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns coaching defensive lines. Freeze brought Garrett last season at Liberty to be their defensive line coach before holding the same position at Auburn this season.
Secondary/Cornerbacks Coach, Wesley McGriff
Wesley McGriff rejoins Auburn after proving his experience in the NFL and the college level as he has been coaching as far back as 1990. His biggest role to date was defensive coordinator at Ole Miss from 2017 to 2018. He’s had two prior stints at Auburn as an assistant coach in 2016 and 2019 through 2020 mostly coaching the secondary.
Offensive Line Coach, Jake Thornton
Jake Thornton has been an assistant coach focusing on offensive lines since 2016. His most prominent role came when he coached at Ole Miss in 2021 and 2022 coaching their offensive line having two players land All-SEC honors. Thornton’s success at Ole Miss landed him the same job at Auburn for this season.