Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze has spent his first season on the Plains overhauling a bad roster. Now it’s time to focus on winning writes Brian Hauch.
Auburn Football started this season with extremely tempered expectations. The program would have a new starting quarterback, a revamped offensive line, transfers starting at multiple positions along the defense, and a new head coach in [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag].
The [autotag]Bryan Harsin[/autotag] era set back the Tigers a few years, and Freeze was brought in to help get the program in the right direction.
In many aspects, he has done just that, mainly through the recruiting trail. Freeze has overhauled Auburn’s recruiting tactics, getting four and five-star commits to become Tigers frequently.
Freeze has had to pick up the pieces of the mess left by Harsin since he arrived on the Plains, and while he’s done a good job rebuilding an Auburn culture that was lost, it’s time for him to take a minute and focus on “the now”.
That “now” is beyond ugly right now. The Tigers have lost all four of their games in the SEC. The offensive side of the ball, that is supposedly Hugh Freeze’s specialty as a head coach, is a disaster.
Freeze has seemed to completely give up on quarterback [autotag]Payton Thorne [/autotag] but refuses to move on to [autotag]Robby Ashford[/autotag] full time, or even [autotag]Holden Grenier.[/autotag] a shot.
To be fair, Freeze did warn Auburn supporters about something like this happening at the beginning of the season with his team’s lack of talent compared to other SEC schools fairly apparent.
While that’s a fine assertion at the beginning of the season, you would still like to see some signs of improvement, and there has been virtually none.
In Auburn’s gritty week two win over Cal, the offense scored 14 points while accumulating 230 total yards.
[autotag]Payton Thorne[/autotag] threw for 94 yards and two touchdowns. Rivaldo Fairweather caught 3 passes for 39 yards, and Jay Fair caught 2 passes for 25 yards.
Now, if we fast forward to Auburn’s loss at home last week against Ole Miss, the offense scored 21 points (7 of them coming in the games final seconds). They accumulated 275 total yards, [autotag]Payton Thorne [/autotag] threw for 100 yards and 1 touchdown, and the team only had 2 players catch over 1 pass.
Auburn’s offense has not improved at all, and that is pretty unacceptable, especially considering the defense continues to be one of the better units in the SEC.
In a year in which Auburn has a chance to go to a bowl, and hosts an Iron Bowl, [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag] and his staff need to reel it in and focus on what is in front of them. It’s time to worry about the finish of this season and not the start of the next one.
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