The coaching staff for Hugh Freeze's first season at Auburn is starting to take shape with the school preparing to introduce Philip Montgomery as offensive coordinator and Ron Roberts as defensive coordinator, sources confirmed to CBS Sports' Barrett Sallee. Montgomery has even recognized his new position on the Auburn football staff on social media.
Montgomery was most recently the head football coach at Tulsa from 2015-22, guiding the Golden Hurricane to four bowl appearances in eight years with a 10-win season in 2016 and an American Athletic Conference Championship Game appearance in 2020. He was fired at the end of 2022 after a 5-7 season that dropped him to 43-53 overall across the tenure. He immediately began to emerge as a top offensive coordinator target.
Prior to his stint at Tulsa, Montgomery rose through the ranks as an offensive coordinator for Art Briles at both Houston and Baylor. His time with the Bears included being named a Broyles Award finalist in 2013 and overseeing the offense that propelled Robert Griffin III to a Heisman Trophy in 2011. Though Freeze has been the offensive play-caller at both Ole Miss and Liberty while carrying his own reputation as a top offensive mind, he reportedly will be handing over those duties, among others, to Montgomery when the Tigers take the field in 2023.
Defensively, Freeze has decided to bring in a respected head coach with deep ties to modern defenses in Ron Roberts. The former Delta State and Southeastern Louisiana head coach was the defensive coordinator for Dave Aranda at Baylor for the past three seasons, helping the Bears win the Big 12 title in 2021. He was fired following the 2022 season and quickly became a highly sought-after candidate for multiple Power Five jobs; 247Sports' Brandon Marcello reported that Roberts interviewed with Arkansas and Georgia Tech in addition to Auburn prior to committing to Freeze.
Roberts' connections to modern defenses stems from his success as a head coach on the field and in hiring assistants. At Southeastern Louisiana, he oversaw a staff that included Pete Golding (now Alabama's defensive coordinator), Patrick Toney (now Florida's defensive coordinator) and Karl Scott (a title-winning Alabama assistant now with the Seattle Seahawks). At Delta State, Roberts brought on Aranda as defensive coordinator for one season (2007) during a stint that saw the program win four conference championships in five seasons and reach the Division II National Championship Game in 2010.
