Auburn football coach Hugh Freeze baptized freshman safety Sylvester Smith on Tuesday night after a worship service at Neville Arena that attracted thousands of people.
The Unite Auburn event featured speakers and a live worship band. Following the event, the crowd moved to the lake at Auburn’s Ag Heritage Park, also known as the Red Barn, where more than 100 baptisms took place.
Video posted on X appears to show the baptism:
GOD is moving in Auburn!!!
Students, athletes, and whoever are giving their lives to Jesus and getting baptized at the Red Barn🙌🏾🔥 pic.twitter.com/XfRN23aquE
— AUBURN SUPERFAN #2 (@MichaelFloyd_AU) September 13, 2023
Auburn head basketball coach Bruce Pearl and head baseball coach Butch Thompson also attended the event, and the coaches, along with Freeze, promoted the event in the weeks leading up to Tuesday.
Auburn center Dylan Cardwell posted about the event, saying, “thank you God for revival”:
Still in awe about all that happened yesterday! God is moving on Auburn’s campus, over 100 college students felt CALLED to get baptized after last nights @UniteAuburn service! Wow wow wow, thank you God for REVIVAL🙏 pic.twitter.com/tzSCbhR0rd
— Dylan Cardwell (@Dylanupnext__) September 13, 2023
Freeze made headlines in August as he praised the Tuohy family that adopted Michael Oher, made famous in the movie The Blind Side, for helping when Oher was homeless. Freeze, who coached Oher at Ole Miss. “I love Michael Oher. He’s like part of our family. I love the Tuohys,” Freeze told the Auburn Observer, and said of the family’s recent legal troubles, “I think it’s sad, and I certainly don’t claim to understand all the ins and outs of adoption, conservatory, all of that. But I know what I witnessed, and I witnessed a family that totally took in a young man. And I think without that, there is no story.