Boy, this is rich. Hugh Freeze is bummed out about losing K.J. Bolden to Kirby Smart at the last minute.
Now he knows how Mark Richt felt about losing Laremy Tunsil at the last minute.
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UPDATE:
He’s not taking it well, is he…
Filed under Freeze!, Recruiting
Welp, this came more quickly than expected.
Before the stadium had begun to empty, with the result of the game still in the air, Auburn lined up quarterback Holden Geriner for his first meaningful snap of any kind this season and tucked him behind tight end Brandon Frazier. There were just over five minutes remaining in the third quarter, and the score still tied at 14. The plan was a double pass, with the ball tossed backward to Geriner and he would find an open receiver deep downfield.
Except he only had one blocker, who was shoved out of the way immediately and Geriner was sacked on the trick play.
It set up third-and-19 still on the Ole Miss half of the field. Auburn ran up the middle with Jarquez Hunter and gained four yards. Punter Oscar Chapman ran on the field.
And it was in this moment that all the optimism that has characterized Auburn’s season thus far drowned into boos. The hope of Auburn fans had been exhausted. It appeared as a rock bottom.
It was the first time Auburn’s inept offense had been booed this season.
In that moment, the Hugh Freeze honeymoon ended.
Yeah, the personnel situation isn’t great. But Freeze has this rep as an offensive guru that isn’t playing out on the Plains.
… There is frustration from the fan base. Auburn’s offense is on pace to be historically bad.
Auburn has barely averaged more than 100 passing yards against SEC opponents. It’s the worst rate for Auburn this century.
And for all Hugh Freeze has talked about the talent gap Auburn has and the recruiting that still lies in the future, these repetitive failures of offense come down to coaching. Auburn made the same mistakes of alignment, protection, route running and simply poor quarterback play after a bye week where it planned to fix it.
The talent gap doesn’t cause Auburn to have 12 men in the huddle for a third down in the fourth quarter. Auburn was penalized twice for illegal substitutions. That’s coaching. And the fans noticed it.
Auburn’s passing offense was already ranked among the 10 worst in the nation before another bad day Saturday. Auburn had 122 total passing yards but 47 of them came on a dump-off pass to running back Jarquez Hunter later in the fourth quarter.
Eh, that’s a real shame.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Freeze!
Like many of us, Hugh Freeze longs for a simpler time. You know, like back in the days when he was the Ole Miss head coach before there was NIL complicating things on the recruiting trail. It’s just not the same anymore.
Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze believes in the “process of becoming.”
It’s the same process that helped Freeze rise from the high school football ranks to being the head coach of a place like the SEC.
It took patience, stops at Lambuth University and Arkansas State and getting over plenty of bumps in the road that came along the way.
That same process is why Freeze prefers recruiting high school kids over plucking them out of the transfer portal.
“My preference would be to develop kids,” Freeze said. “But the process of becoming is kinda being lost.”
A dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to, eh?
That’s not the most eyerolling bit in the article, though. This is:
Today’s society is one that constantly seeks instant gratification.
Do tell. If anyone’s an expert in instant gratification, it’s Coach Escort Service On Speed Dial.
Filed under Freeze!
I know most college football coaches are famously known for wearing blinders when it comes to news outside their own programs, but this strikes me as a little extreme, even for that:
Of course, Hugh may have been just a little preoccupied back in 2017, you know?
Filed under Freeze!
Oh, brother.
I could hate him for that, but I’ll settle for playing this for the first time this week instead.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Freeze!, Georgia Football
Like, for example, Auburn’s.
“If we’re not in that top-10 range, they’ll probably be firing me in Year 4 or Year 5,” he said with a half-laugh, “but you know that coming in. …”
… It [Recruiting] has to be even better, though, to beat Alabama and Georgia.
“How anybody really closes it on those two, the challenge is tall,” Freeze said.
Hugh’s biggest problem, given the proliferation of NIL, is that everybody can do now what he was doing under the table at Ole Miss.
Filed under Alabama, Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Freeze!, Georgia Football, Recruiting
Alabama is hiring Liberty linebackers coach Robert Bala as its new inside linebackers coach, program sources confirmed to The Athletic on Saturday…
Bala, who came to Liberty after being the defensive coordinator at Southern Utah, had blown Hugh Freeze away in the interview process with his knowledge and demeanor. Bala obviously did something similar when he met with Saban earlier this week.
So, this guy blew Freeze away so strongly… that Freeze didn’t bring him to Auburn, but Saban’s grabbing him now? I know he’s the GOAT and all, but that seems like I’m missing something.
Filed under Alabama, Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Freeze!, Nick Saban Rules
Auburn hired Hugh Freeze so the rest of us can be punished with pseudo-inspirational garbage like this during his tenure there?
Gag me with a spoon.
Football gods, I hope you know what to do.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Freeze!
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