Auburn's head coach, Hugh Freeze, is one of the very few coaches across college football to ever notch multiple wins over Nick Saban during his tenure at Alabama.

Urban Meyer, Dabo Swinney, Les Miles, and Gus Malzahn are the only coaches to join Freeze with multiple wins over Saban. No coach had more than three wins against Saban during his time in Tuscaloosa.

Only 22 coaches across college football ever toppled the Tide with Nick Saban at the helm. For 17 years, coaches lined up to take a shot at Saban, and for 17 years, most of them walked away having failed.

All good things must come to an end, and Nick Saban retired from college football with the most impressive career of anyone. Despite this, it has not stopped some coaches from poking the bear now that the bear is out of the woods.

Former Ole Miss and current Auburn head coach, Hugh Freeze, had two wins against Saban, both came during his tenure at Ole Miss. He also has four losses against Saban.

In a recent interview with ESPN's Marty Smith, Freeze boldly claimed that he should have ended with more victories against the legendary head coach.

"I mean, honestly, Nick is incredible, but I should have four wins against him," Freeze said. "We beat him twice and we had them 24-3 the third year, and I wasn't smart enough to slow it down. And then last year, it easily could have gone our way. I may have not phrased that right, I want everybody (to know that), but we easily could have beat him a few more times."

The second game Freeze referred to featured a 4th-and-31 touchdown pass from Jalen Milroe to Isaiah Bond to give Alabama a late 27-24 win over Auburn in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“Not winning that game sucked. It stunk. It was disappointing and hard, but at the same time, I didn’t think our roster was as good as theirs," Freeze said. "It gave me even more confidence that Auburn can return to one of the top programs in the country pretty fast because we went toe-to-toe with them and should’ve won the game, truthfully. It was a mixed bag of this is awful, but man, we can play with them.”

Despite a lackluster 2-4 record against Saban, Smith commended Freeze for "giving them hell" every time Freeze played against Saban and Alabama.

Freeze explained what gave Saban trouble in their matchups.

“Well, at Ole Miss, I think we were one of the first staffs to bring in the tempo RPO world, and he didn’t like that at all and tried to get it changed and all that,” Freeze said. “Then he started doing it. He’s a good friend of mine, for sure, but I did understand what complicated their calls.”

Should have beaten Alabama, would have beaten Alabama, could have beaten Alabama. Either way, when the scoreboard was turned off, Alabama was on the right side four out of six times.

 

Wyatt Fulton is the TIde 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.

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