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Hugh Freeze is battling illness and is expected to coach Auburn against Kentucky
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Hugh Freeze is battling illness and is expected to coach Auburn against Kentucky

Chestnut brown Hugh Vries will coach against it on Saturday Kentucky despite reportedly battling an illness, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Pete Nakos of On3 confirmed that Freeze will “definitely coach” on Saturday.

“Sources: Auburn coach Hugh Freeze is battling an illness – possibly food poisoning – and did not travel to Kentucky with the team yesterday,” Thamel wrote on Twitter. “He is flying to Lexington this morning and is expected to coach.”

Whatever Freeze ate appears to have subsided and he will be in Lexington in time to coach the Tigers against the Wildcats.

Auburn is 2-5 under Freeze this season and it’s been a rough road so far. After Kentucky, they get ranked matchups against Vanderbilt, Texas A&M and Alabama from their last four games.

With that slow first half of the year, Freeze took some time to reflect on the team and coaches’ approach, emphasizing that the team wants to play to win and not not to lose.

“It’s whatever you want,” Freeze said. “You want to feel that way all the time, but you want to have the confidence and definitely do what’s right for your current team to give them the best chance to win.”

In Auburn’s most recent game, there was a close loss to it MissouriIt looked like the Tigers had a chance to win. At one point in the second half, Auburn even had a two-score lead and Missouri’s quarterback Brady Cook was struggling with an injury. Still, Missouri came from behind to win.

“It’s exactly the same as what I said a while ago about the very last property we had,” Freeze said. “I really wanted to take a shot on the first play and go for the kill. I really did, and I really think it was a good play and a good call. You also just had a defense that stoned them on three and outside the 5 yard line and we didn’t always take care of the ball or protect it when I felt free and loose all the time. So all these things are in your mind, so obviously I’ve gone back to our best player in 27 (Jarquez Hunter), and in the end we had to punt and redeploy our defense, which I didn’t mind at the time because they were playing so well.

“Brady Cook has done a great job of expanding the plays. The punishment hurt us too. I missed a line at a freshman turn on the third and 10 really hurt on that last ride.