Auburn-Ole Miss Showdown Is a Rivalry That Is All in the Coaching Family

The head coach lived in a trailer off Highway 38 in Hughes, Arkansas. In the mornings, he taught history at Hughes High, where he made $24,000 a year. On many autumn afternoons he hopped onto a tractor, which he taught himself how to drive, and cut the football field grass. Wearing a visor in honor of the coach he most admired—Steve Spurrier—he guided that machine back and forth across the field, making sure every blade was trimmed just so. He may have been in the middle of the Arkansas countryside, but this football field in this farming community was his personal Eden.  

A whistle draped around his neck, he then would lead the football team through practice. Once home in his trailer, deep into the night, he would bury his head in a circle of lamplight on his desk, scribbling ideas for how to run an offense that featured elements of the Wing-T, an antiquated option attack that could be found in yellowed newspapers clippings from the 1950s. His imagination firing, Gus Malzahn dreamed of one day coaching in the SEC. The year was 1992.    

Thirty-five miles to the northeast, in the fall of that same year, the assistant coach lived in an apartment in Memphis, Tenn. He spent his mornings in the classroom at Briarcrest Christian High, teaching a range of subjects. On many autumn afternoons, wearing a visor in honor of the coach he most admired—Steve Spurrier—he hopped onto a riding lawn mower and cut the football field. Other days he painted lines on the field and picked up bits of garbage that had blown onto his grass. He may have been a world away from the bright lights of big-time college athletics, but this football field was his personal Eden.

After practices the assistant would return to his cramped apartment. Deep into the night, a remote in his hand, he would watch game tapes of Spurrier's Fun 'N' Gun offense at Florida. When he saw something he really liked, he'd hit pause and meticulously diagram the play in a spiral notebook, the Xs and Os flowing furiously from his pen. His imagination firing, Hugh Freeze dreamed of one day coaching in the SEC.

The head coach and the assistant met a few springs later. For years, they marveled at all they had in common. For years, they wondered aloud together: Will our dreams ever come true? Will we ever make it in the SEC?

Twenty-one autumns have passed since they began coaching high school football 35 miles apart, and now here they come, each strutting into their most important game of the 2014 season—against each other. On Saturday evening in Oxford, Mississippi, Malzahn's No. 4-ranked Auburn Tigers will play Freeze's No. 7-ranked Ole Miss Rebels in what is essentially an early elimination game for the SEC and national championship.

Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

"Yeah, we've known each other a long, long time," said Freeze, 45, who has called his own plays since high school. "It's almost like when I look in the mirror, I see Gus."

"[Hugh] is one of my best friends in this business," said Malzahn, 49, who has called his own plays since high school. "We came from a similar background and a similar path…He is a great communicator. He is a very good football mind."

"Whenever I've needed something or had a question about something, Gus has always been there for me," Freeze said. "We've had hundreds of conversations over the years about football and about life. I wouldn't trade our friendship for anything."

"There are a lot of great high school coaches out there that can be very successful in college; they just haven't been given the opportunity," Malzahn said. "Hugh and I have talked about that numerous times, that we feel blessed we were given opportunities."

Malzahn and Freeze first shook hands at a high school coaching clinic in the mid-1990s. They quickly became close, if for no other reason than they had so much in common.

Malzahn, a religious man who speaks in a soft, honey-dripping drawl, is given to obsession. As a boy in Fort Smith, Arkansas, he could contentedly throw a baseball against a brick wall for hours and he studied Tom Landry and his Dallas Cowboys offense like it was his favorite subject in school. As Malzahn rose through the coaching ranks, he never stopped tinkering, toying, studying, diagramming his offense. On napkins, notebooks, loose pieces of paper, he jotted ideas whenever they flashed into his mind.

Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Freeze, a religious man who speaks in a soft, honey-dripping drawl, also is given to obsession. As a boy in Independence, Mississippi, Freeze, the son of a high school football coach, would walk to the edge of his family's farm and, peering through the fence, watch his dad's team practice in the distance, his youthful eyes mesmerized by the action. On Friday nights little Hugh wore khaki pants and a red shirt—just like the coaches on the sidelines—and closely studied his dad's offense, the "Notre Dame Box," a variation of the single-wing that can be traced back to Knute Rockne in the late 1910s.

As Freeze rose through the coaching ranks, he never stopped tinkering, toying, studying, diagramming his hurry-up spread offense that resembles the Notre Dame Box. On napkins, notebooks, loose pieces of paper, he jotted ideas whenever they flashed into his mind.

The years passed and friendship between Malzahn and Freeze blossomed like a spring garden. Over the phone they talked a blue streak about the Xs and Os of their offenses, how best to attack different defenses and of their shared frustration of not being able to land a job on a college team.

But then their reputations as yardage-produce masterminds started to grow beyond the bubble of high school football. They piled up state titles—Malzahn won three in Arkansas; Freeze captured two in Tennessee—and they both got their first big breaks in 2006. Malzahn, after 15 years of coaching preps in Arkansas, was hired by Arkansas head coach Houston Nutt to be the Razorbacks offensive coordinator; Freeze, after coaching at the high school level for 14 years in Tennessee, was named by Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron to be the Rebels' tight end coach and recruiting coordinator.

Shortly after Malzahn signed his contract, one of his first calls was to his buddy Freeze, happily sharing the news. Freeze returned the favor before the ink was dry on his deal at Ole Miss. They had become the equivalent of coaching brothers, sharing not only pigskin DNA, but also biographies.

"There have been some amazing parallels in our careers," Freeze said recently, sitting in his office at Ole Miss and shaking his head at the unlikeliness of it all. "It's almost like we've gone through it all together. I mean, all of it."

APRIL L. BROWN/Associated Press/Associated Press/Associated Press

From his living room couch in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Dean Lee never misses an Auburn or Ole Miss game. Whenever the image of Malzahn or Freeze flashes onto the screen, Lee, 57, beams like a proud father. And for good reason: He is the man who launched both of them into the rarefied air of being a head coach in the SEC.

"I feel great pride every time I see them," says Lee, the former athletic director at Arkansas State. "To know that I gave them the opportunity to show what they could do fills me with great joy. It's not easy to get a job as a head coach in the SEC. To have two of my guys in that league is...it's special."

Turn the clock back to the winter of 2010. Lee, the A.D. at Arkansas State, was looking for a head coach for the following season. Freeze was the offensive coordinator for the Red Wolves, and Lee was strongly considering offering him the job. So Lee called an assistant at Auburn to dig into Freeze's background. A former college professor, Lee had taught Gus Malzahn in 1989 when he was an undergraduate at Henderson State in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

"What do you think of Hugh Freeze?" Lee asked Malzahn, who was weeks away from helping Auburn win the national championship as the team's offensive coordinator.

"I think the world of Hugh," Lee recalls Malzahn saying. "He's a tremendous offensive mind and an even better person. You know he's always going to do the right thing. He's a student of the game and not afraid to ask someone else how he should go up against a certain defense. He's always trying to learn something new. I guarantee you he will be successful as a head coach."

A few days later, Lee hired Freeze.

But Freeze, then a rising coaching star, didn't stay long at Arkansas State. In his one year in Jonesboro, he became just the 14th FBS first-year head coach to win 10 regular season games. The Red Wolves were one of two teams in the NCAA to lead their conference in both total offense and defense.

Don Ryan/Associated Press

Freeze left for Ole Miss. One of the first calls he made after he accepted the job in the Oxford was to Malzahn. Freeze told him about the yet-to-be-announced job opening at Arkansas State and how, if he took the position, it could ultimately propel him to a top job in the SEC. Plus, Freeze said, the team was loaded with talent.

Days later, Malzahn announced he was leaving Auburn to take the reins at Arkansas State, where he would lead the Red Wolves to the 2012 Sun Belt Conference title.

Just as Freeze had prophesied to his friend, Malzahn didn't last long in Jonesboro. He was hired as Auburn's head coach on Dec. 4, 2012.

"Hugh and Gus are so similar in their work ethic and attention to detail with their offenses, but their personalities are very different," says Lee, who is now an associate vice chancellor at Arkansas State. "Hugh is easy going, very comfortable to be around, approachable, doesn't carry an ego, can relate to all classes of people and is very easy to talk to. With Hugh, everything is about family. He's a father figure to every player who passes through his program. And he's great at public speaking and selling a program to the community. He'd do three speaking engagements a day for us at times, whether it was at a civic club or a church. Our ticket sales went up just because of Hugh."

Lee continues. "Gus is not as approachable as Hugh," he says. "He's more introverted. He's not as close to as many people. He's highly focused, and I'll tell you, he doesn't want distractions. He goes daylight to dark every day and he has the expectation that his staff will work hard as well. He's as detailed as anyone you'll ever meet. Nothing is unanticipated. No one is going to outwork him or his staff."

On Saturday night in Oxford, Lee will be in the stands, his eyes locked onto the two head coaches. And when Malzahn and Freeze meet at midfield before kickoff, they won't talk of their past struggles or their common history. As in all sibling rivalries, only one thing will matter to the coaches on Saturday night once the opening whistle sounds:

Beating the daylights out of the one you cherish the most.

Lars Anderson is a 20-year veteran of Sports Illustrated and the author of six books, including The Storm and the Tide, which was published in August. He's currently an instructor of journalism at the University of Alabama. Follow him on Twitter @LarsAnderson71.