Hugh Freeze, Battling Illness, to Travel Late and Coach Auburn vs. Kentucky

Auburn Tigers football coach Hugh Freeze did not make the trip to Lexington alongside the rest of his team for the upcoming Week 9 game against the Kentucky Wildcats.

But Freeze is still expected to be pacing the sidelines when the Tigers and Wildcats kick off at 7:45 p.m. ET on Saturday.

Freeze is battling an illness, with symptoms that seem to indicate it’s food poisoning, and was unable to make the trip with the team on Friday, sources told Pete Thamel of ESPN.

But Freeze reportedly flew to Lexington on Saturday morning and is still expected to coach the Tigers. It’s not the first time Freeze has battled through sickness to coach.

During his tenure as coach of the Liberty Flames, Freeze, before an August 2019 game against Syracuse, held team meetings from a hospital bed while recovering from surgery to treat a serious staph infection. Freeze eventually was wheeled into the stadium and coached the game from a hospital bed inside what used to be a radio/TV booth in the press box of Arthur L. Williams Stadium.

While the circumstances are not quite the same this time around, Freeze will still be a welcome presence on the sidelines in a pivotal game for the Tigers. Auburn (2-5) is looking to stop a four-game skid that saw the program lose three straight contests to ranked teams (Oklahoma, Georgia and Missouri).