Mark Ingram trolls Auburn for school's dysfunction after Hugh Freeze firing: 'We love it'

The Auburn Tigers have had some trouble finding stability in recent years. In particular, the firing of head coach Hugh Freeze has led to another round of major changes within the football program. Naturally, that dysfunction is something that the folks at Alabama are well aware of right now.

Former Crimson Tide running back Mark Ingram is among those who have decided to take shots at Auburn recently. In Ingram’s case, he appeared on his show, The Triple Option, emphasizing how much he’s been enjoying Auburn’s recent issues, but also that those issues are more than just imagined by fans.

“Coach [Urban Meyer], you’ve been a part of successful teams,” Mark Ingram said. “I’ve been a part of successful teams, both college and the NFL, and the thing here is you have to be aligned from the president to the AD, to the head coach, to the coaching staff, to the players, it has to be a vertical, in-sync, type of rhythm for you to be successful. It seems like it’s kind of off. You know how you play Tetris and it just keeps stacking up on you quick, like now you lost. So, it just seems like they’re not in cohesion right now, and honestly, we love it.”

The Auburn Tigers have struggled to find stability since the end of the Gus Malzahn era. He was fired in 2020, amid a difficult season that year. Since then, the Tigers went through two seasons of Bryan Harsin and three of Hugh Freeze, though both would be fired midseason and replaced by interim head coaches. In that same time, from Malzahn’s final season forward, Auburn is just 31-36 overall and 16-24 in SEC play. Their last 10-win season was back in 2017.

It’s been expensive to churn through buyouts during that time too. Auburn has to pay Hugh Freeze around $15.8 million. That’s after Auburn paid buyouts of $15.3 million for Bryan Harsin and $21.45 million for Gus Malzahn.

Now, Auburn is back on the coaching carousel. This time, it comes in a very busy coaching cycle that looks to be a major competition to hire one of the big names being rumored to be on the move. Getting it right, and getting that alignment Ingram emphasized, is going to be vital for the Tigers.

“We love it,” Ingram said. “Roll damn Tide. I hope the dysfunction continues.”

This year’s Iron Bowl is an opportunity for Auburn to play spoiler to Alabama’s season. The Crimson Tide have won five straight in that rivalry, going back to 2019, during the Malzahn era. Auburn plays host this season, where they’ve played the last three times the Tigers won the Iron Bowl.