How Auburn's Hugh Freeze has known Alabama football's Kalen DeBoer for more than a decade
It's 2008, and the coaches at NAIA programs Lambuth and Sioux Falls are gearing up for the playoffs.
The Eagles are entering the postseason 8-3 under their first-year leader, a former assistant at Ole Miss who's getting his first head coaching shot at the collegiate level. The Cougars, meanwhile, are in the middle of a dynasty under a coach who would win 67 of the 70 games he led them in.
About 16 years later, those coaches — Alabama football's Kalen DeBoer and Auburn's Hugh Freeze — will meet in the Iron Bowl as opponents for the first time. Despite them both making it to the playoffs in the two years they overlapped in NAIA, they never ran into one another.
“We were both pretty good," Freeze said Wednesday at the Reese's Senior Bowl when asked about DeBoer, per video posted by Auburn Undercover. "He was really good. We were pretty good in the two years I was there. We both got in the playoffs both times and I got to know him a good bit."
Former Indiana coach and current Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen is a mutual friend between Freeze and DeBoer. Allen hired DeBoer to be his offensive coordinator with the Hoosiers in 2019.
"I talked Tom partially into hiring him, I think, as his OC at Indiana," Freeze said. "I think a lot of Kalen.”
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Richard Silva the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: What Hugh Freeze thinks of new Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer
