Saturday night’s 10–3 rock fight at Auburn was more than a battle of two struggling SEC teams. It was a meeting of two head coaches under immense pressure. Mark Stoops and Hugh Freeze were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 on a recent national list of coaches most likely to be fired.
By the time the game ended, Freeze took Stoops’ place in the hottest seat in the conference after suffering the painful loss in their head-to-head on Freeze’s home turf.
For Stoops, the win was ugly, but it was his kind of ugly. His defense dominated, his punter flipped the field, and his players hung on when things got tight.