With two wins head-to-head, Auburn head football coach Hugh Freeze is one of the few active head coaches to boast any form of success against legendary and recently retired Alabama coach Nick Saban, and he is kicking himself for not having more.
In a sitdown interview with SEC Network's "Marty & McGee" set to air on Monday night, Freeze lamented the heartbreaking 2023 Iron Bowl loss and lamented that he should have four wins against his good friend Saban instead of just two.
“Not winning that game sucked," Freeze said of last year's Iron Bowl. "It stunk. It was disappointing, hard. But at the same time, I didn’t think our roster was as good as theirs. And 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. So it was a mixed bag of this is awful, but man, we can play with them.”
"Nick is incredible – but I should have four wins against them,” he continued. “We beat them 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’ve gone our way. I may not have phrased that exactly [right]. But we easily could’ve beat him a few more times.”
After losing to Alabama in his first two seasons at Ole Miss, Freeze's Rebels beat the Tide in 2014 and 2015 before falling 48-43 in 2016 after blowing a 24-3 lead.
In the 2023 Iron Bowl, Auburn snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by giving up a Jalen Milroe touchdown pass to Isaiah Bond on 4th-and-goal from the 31-yard-line, with just 32 seconds remaining, to seal a 27-24 win.
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