Hugh Freeze had given up on his dream. His vision of becoming a head coach in the SEC seemed out of the question, out of the realm of possibility. The football coach had spent 13 seasons at the high school level, all at Briarcrest HS in Tennessee. He was hired in 1992 as the offensive coordinator and quarterback coach before taking the head coaching position in 1995.

It was 2004, and his career was fine, but it wasn't exactly where he had pictured himself being by then. So, he lost his vision, but one person didn't: his wife, Jill.

The word of the week for the Auburn football program is vision, and Freeze will be vulnerable and open when talking to his players and staff about Jill keeping his vision alive.

"I'm going to tell them my vision of being an SEC head football coach," the Auburn head coach said on Tuesday. "I declared that vision on my honeymoon with my wife but gave up on it, truthfully, after 13 years of high school coaching. But she never did. She would constantly be hounding me about that: 'That wasn't your vision. That wasn't your vision.'"

Two years later, with the support of his wife, Freeze got his first shot in the SEC under Ed Orgeron at Ole Miss. He served as the tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator for the Rebels. Following Orgeron's firing, he interviewed for the offensive coordinator position under Houston Nutt, but the new Ole Miss head coach went with, ironically, Kent Austin.

So Freeze took his first college head coaching job at Lambuth. After two years, he took the OC job at Arkansas State and the head coaching job in Jonesboro a year later.

His dream of being a head coach in the SEC was finally realized on December 5, 2011, when the hometown Rebels came calling. He won in Oxford and won big before it all came crashing down infamously.

Now, he's entering his second season at Auburn, hired by John Cohen, who said that Jill was one of the major reasons Freeze got the job. And it all started because of a push by his wife, who has had his back and biggest fan for more than 31 years.

"She (Jill) thought differently, and she's really the one that encouraged me to take this off-the-field job at Ole Miss way back for Ed Orgeron that really kept my vision alive," Freeze said.