[autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag] is known to be a wizard at developing quarterbacks, and one of his former players is shedding light on what it is like to play for him.
In a conversation with Richard Silva of the Montgomery Advertiser, former Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace shares his reasoning behind choosing Ole Miss and Hugh Freeze following his lone season at East Mississippi Community College.
“Just the culture that he sets,” Wallace said. “He’s one of the best I’ve been around in creating buy-in with his roster and his coaches. I think he can get people to believe. The buy-in that he creates is something I knew was going to happen at Ole Miss, and I think you can see it in the other places he’s been since Ole Miss. I think that’s one of his best qualities.”
Similar to Auburn’s situation, Wallace entered Ole Miss to become part of a quarterback competition. He battled fellow quarterback Barry Brunetti and ultimately won. Freeze has shown in his short time at Auburn that he is going to take his time in picking the right quarterback, and Wallace can back that claim up.
“(Freeze is) a guy that is going to take it up all the way to game week, unless somebody just goes out and just takes it over,” Wallace said. “He’s going to keep that competition going all the way up until, like I said, game week or maybe two weeks before the game, just because he believes in the competition.”
Wallace says that the reason for his careful nature when it comes to quarterback competition is that he wants to see how each candidate handles adversity. However, he will prove to be the winning quarterback’s “biggest fan” during games.
“He kind of throws you in the fire in the practice, Wallace said. “There were some days where I felt like he just picked the day and I couldn’t do anything right that day. Just to throw some adversity at me. But I think he’s very different in the game. He’s your biggest fan during the game. But during practice, he definitely throws you in the heat and tries to create adversity and really stays on you.”
Wallace played for Freeze for three seasons and threw for a total of 9,534 yards and 62 touchdowns. The 2013 season, where Wallace threw for 3,346 yards and 18 touchdowns, was the fourth-best season by a Freeze-led quarterback since 2011.
For more of Silva’s conversation with Wallace, click here.
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