As the old political saying goes: If you’re explaining, you’re losing. And right now Hugh Freeze is explaining.<\/p>\n
The Auburn head golfing hobby has become a topic of conversation over the summer, which led Freeze to offer this explanation to former ESPN personality David Pollack’s podcast<\/a>. In fact, Pollack opened the conversation by asking about Freeze’s golf game.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, everybody seems to like to talk about my golf game,\u201d Freeze responded. \u201cIt\u2019s not as good as it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is that time where people are looking for things to write about,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd I do love golf. I enjoy playing, but what people don\u2019t realize is, you know, I assure you that I never missed a camp day or a recruiting day but if camp got over at three o\u2019clock one day, and Jill (Freeze\u2019s wife) and I go out at 4:30, we absolutely might do that.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019m not apologizing for that part of it. But my focus is 100% on getting Auburn in that win column this fall. And I do think the biggest thing that\u2019s causing most of it is the recruiting rankings right now, because we\u2019ve been top 10 my two years here in recruiting, and currently we\u2019re not. And good Lord, we could spend 30 minutes on why I think that is.\u201d<\/p>\n Back in May, AL.com<\/a>\u00a0reported that the USGA’s Golf Handicap Information Network listed Freeze as a 5.9 handicap, making him “one of the best golfers in the SEC coaching community.” Freeze’s skill on the course was not as much a concern to Auburn fans as his time spent on it — the site said Freeze had reported 20 scores by that point in the year. He reported 10 more scores in June<\/a>, the busiest month of the offseason recruiting calendar.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the same time, Auburn struggled on the recruiting trail through the month of June. The Tigers suffered three decommitments in June, and a fourth on July 1. As of this writing, Auburn’s 9-man recruiting class ranks 78th nationally in the 247Sports\u00a0composite, with no players in the national top 100 and two in the top 250. We are absolutely not saying that correlation makes causation in this case; Auburn’s explanation is, essentially, that everyone is lying and\/or cheating but them<\/a>. But others are certainly happy to claim Freeze is more concerned with carding fours than nabbing 4-stars.\u00a0<\/p>\n It should be noted that, judging by his own Twitter account, Lane himself spends plenty of time deep sea fishing, and that all three of Auburn has finished ahead of Ole Miss in the 247\u00a0rankings every year since Freeze got to the Plains. Some other notable caveats:<\/p>\n