SEC Commissioner calls Hugh Freeze golf controversy “misplaced”

There has been a lot said about Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze and his golf outings. Freeze’s golf outings of late have come to light, especially since Alabama has had so much success recently on the recruiting trail.

It also doesn’t help that two Auburn football players have been arrested on major charges in the past few weeks as well.

While the media and fans alike have come for Freeze, he does have his defenders. One of them is SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey.

Sankey said on an appearance on “The Opening Kickoff” that criticism of Freeze has been “misplaced.”

“It’s healthy for me to go outside and play golf,” Sankey said. “I think the criticism (of Freeze) is misplaced.”

Sankey recalled a conversation he once had with former Florida and South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier.

Spurrier, too, was coming under fire at the time for playing too much golf as well.

“That’s overblown,” Sankey said Spurrier told him. “He said, ‘Look, I’m not going to be in the film room, so I can brag how much film I watch. When I have time, I’m going to go play golf. I don’t do it during the season.”Years later, Spurrier faced the same criticism again while at South Carolina, and eventually, he quit in the middle of the 2015 season when the Gamecocks were 2-4 at the time.

Sankey said that golf is a way for a lot of coaches to relax as they try to find that work/life balance.

“Given the stress of football coaches, I think it’s the most healthy thing you can do,” Sankey said.“Every piece of that is balance in your life. ... It doesn’t diminish your coaching ability.”

But this is the SEC, where there are no vacations in this conference. Freeze is not only bleeding recruits but doesn’t appear to bother him, and that’s what got fans in an uproar. If Freeze was coming off a College Football Playoff run, or even a victory over Alabama, no one would care, but as they say in the SEC, it just means more.