Auburn AD John Cohen describes the 'thorough' vetting process of football coach Hugh Freeze

AUBURN — Despite Auburn athletic director John Cohen working in various roles at Mississippi State during Hugh Freeze's five-year tenure as the football coach at Ole Miss, the two never had any interactions of substance.

Freeze was forced to resign in 2016 after a scandal broke regarding recruiting violations and the use of a university phone to contact an escort service. Later that same year, Cohen was tabbed to be MSU's athletic director.

Fast-forward to November of last year, and Freeze became Cohen's first hire at Auburn. The decision came after what Cohen called a "thorough examination" that included reaching out to a wide range of people who knew Freeze, including students who played for him at Briarcrest Christian School when he coached girls basketball.

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"There was a lot of work done, and I would have done that amount of work no matter who would have been our candidates," Cohen said in an exclusive interview with the Montgomery Advertiser. "It's just kind of the nature of who I am and the people that I'm fortunate enough to be surrounded by."

Freeze also received criticism for direct messaging a woman, Chelsea Andrews, on Twitter after she made negative comments about Liberty's athletic director, Ian McCaw, who Freeze worked under at the time. Andrews, a former Liberty student, was a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Liberty accusing the university of mishandling sexual assault cases. Freeze was defending McCaw's character in the messages, and screenshots showed he said he was "open to talk about issues" Andrews had.

USA TODAY also reported in 2017 allegations against Freeze coming from former students at Briarcrest Christian School, where Freeze also coached football. One of the women, Katie Dalmasso, said Freeze forced her to change her shirt in his office because it violated the school's dress code. Dalmasso said she was in eighth grade when it happened. Freeze denied the allegations when they first appeared in 2017 and said in a statement he "handled disciplinary issues professionally and in accordance with the school's policy."

There was pushback in some Auburn circles when news broke about Freeze's hiring, something Cohen said he anticipated no matter his choice.

"I recognize the fact that I have a lot of responsibility, but I don't get to control everyone's feelings," Cohen said. "I don't. I can't predict this, but I would say that no matter whom we hired ... there would be some detractors, no matter what. I realized that. It's too high stakes, too much emotion. Too much passion for this program not to have that kind of thing.

"But again, very confident in the people I was working with to get to the right answer and very confident in the homework we did. You don't want anybody to copy your homework, but in some respects throughout this process, I almost wish people could look at my homework and copy my homework because I think the thorough nature of what we did convinced me that we made the right decision."

Ultimately, Cohen was satisfied with the results of the vetting process.

"I will tell you, the people that I've met who have been around Hugh Freeze spoke very, very highly of Hugh Freeze," Cohen said. "It's interesting, the people who didn't speak as highly about Hugh Freeze were people, usually, most of the time, the majority of the time were people who have never met Hugh Freeze.

"I put a lot of stock into that because in our business you either go out and try and gain facts or you're reaching or grasping at something (when) you're not fully aware of all the facts. I wanted to have the facts. That was a big part of this process in hiring Hugh Freeze: gaining (and) getting the facts."

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on Twitter @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Hugh Freeze: Auburn football coach's vetting process by AD John Cohen