Liberty’s Hugh Freeze says Hogs should be favored Saturday

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Even being ranked No. 23 is not enough to have Liberty coach Hugh Freeze getting over-confident this week.

“I don’t know who’s the worst team in the 131 college football teams, but I’d like to be playing them this week and not the Hogs,” Freeze said at his Monday press conference. “The Hogs are going to be a handful for us.”

Freeze coached Ole Miss for five seasons (2012-16) and he didn’t leave because he didn’t win (39-25). He got the Rebels to a pair of New Year’s 6 bowl games and beat Alabama two straight years.

He was fired over calling escorts on a cell phone. They lost 27 wins as part of an NCAA investigation that ultimately cleared Freeze.

All of that is the past. In his fourth season at Liberty, a private school with a huge total enrollment over 90,000 (that includes predominantly online students) he’s 33-12, but that’s not playing a lot of SEC teams.

“It’s hard,” Freeze said. “When you’re playing an SEC roster with a Group of 5 school, it’s just tough. You can’t hardly make any mistakes if you want a chance to be in it.

“It’s going to be a tall, tall task.”

He could see a difference in the Razorbacks after a bye week and dominating Auburn, 41-27, in a game that never really felt that close.

“It benefited them greatly,” he said about the Hogs’ off week. “They got some guys back on defense this past week against Auburn and they started looking more like themselves.”

Having taken over a problem at Ole Miss that was going through the down cycle they seem to have every few years and turning it around, he was impressed.

“Obviously the turnaround at Arkansas from the time he took over is pretty dang incredible,” he said.

The game kicks off at Razorback Stadium at 3 p.m. and will be on the SEC Network. You can listen to the game here or ESPN Arkansas 99.5 in Fayetteville, 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.