Note: Week 5 of the college football season is here. Make your picks for Joe vs. the Pro and the Hero using this link or with the form embedded in the mailbag. Each week, winners of the 6-0 Challenge will be celebrated in Joe’s weekly newsletter, “SPORTS! Happy Hour.” Don’t forget, picks are against the spread.
Looks like it’s time for some Monday morning quarterbacking after Auburn’s 24-14 loss to Arkansas. The mailbag is full and the subject is Auburn coach Hugh Freeze. Let’s get to it.
Todd J. writes …
The players are not the issue. It’s the coaching. Freeze is a has-been who cannot adjust to the game. He brought several coaches on his staff from years ago at Ole Miss. The game has changed too much for the old guys to adapt. You need young assistants to make things work, not the old dinosaurs you coached with 10 years ago. Freeze and coaches are the problem, not the quarterbacks or any other positions. Good players still need good coaches — Freeze and the fossils are not that.
ANSWER: Freeze is only 54 years old, which means he was younger than Lane Kiffin (49) when hired at Ole Miss. I understand the sound and the fury here, but I have to be honest. I like Hugh’s coaching staff. It seems like a good mix of young talent and experienced assistants. The staff is geared towards recruiting at an elite level and they’re getting results.
Wide receiver coach Marcus Davis graduated from Auburn in 2016. Offensive line coach Jake Thornton graduated from Western Carolina in 2015. Quarterbacks coach Kent Austin is well-traveled and an Ole Miss legend. Keep in mind that the NCAA now allows teams to have an unlimited number of assistant coaches at practice. There’s no lack of coaching at Auburn.
Elite Recruiting is No.1 priority in the SEC. Everything else is secondary. Auburn is building for the future and Freeze is taking a deliberate approach. Now, does that mean Auburn can’t be better at quarterback? No, that’s 100 percent on Freeze.
Has the game passed Freeze by? I raised that question after Auburn’s loss to Cal. Auburn’s offense scored 14 points against Cal and then 14 points against Arkansas. I’m sensing a trend.
Freeze can still be a good coach, but being a good coach these days means having a general manager on staff who can go out and land elite quarterbacks in the portal. Let’s look at Miami, for example. The Canes have a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback in Cam Ward who played last year at Washington State and before that at Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Why didn’t Auburn outbid Miami for Ward? Why didn’t Auburn outbid Arkansas for Taylen Green (Boise State transfer)? Freeze chose to stick with Payton Thorne and Hank Brown. It’s costing Auburn this season.
Freeze was just too proud to go out and spend enough on a quarterback.
Let’s use car racing as a metaphor because Formula One is all the rage these days. F1 teams spend millions and millions on putting together the best cars possible. Auburn is doing that, but, for whatever reason, Freeze wanted to save money on the driver and put Fred Flinestone behind the wheel.
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Greg in Elberta, Ala., writes …
What seems to be standing in the way of Auburn recruiting and elite QB? Or, for that matter, developing at least an above average one? With the young and talented wide receiver corps, I would think AU would be an attractive spot for an upper-tier quarterback.
ANSWER: It’s all about the Benjamins.
Rusty B. writes …
My question is really a recommendation. If they really want to see what a quarterback can do, then they should take the red jersey off of him in practice? When you know you aren’t going to get hit, it makes a difference. I understand the idea of limiting live full-speed hitting to avoid injuries, but the old adage that you play like you practice is absolutely true.
ANSWER: Old school, baby. I like it. Survival of the fittest. Whoever doesn’t die in practice gets the ball for the game.
Joan in Roswell, Ga., writes …
Just let Walker White take over, learn and get experience for next year!
JR of St. Simons Island, Ga., writes …
You have to give these guys a chance. This is an Auburn team in transition. Everyone knows that it is going to take a few years to turn this ship around. So why not treat this transition for what it is. Play [Holden] Geriner and Walker White (four games then redshirt him, unless he overachieves). Thorne is toast! He is not going to be around for the transition. Hank Brown is probably “back-up material.” If you have a better idea let me know?
P.S. I think most Auburn fans are in this for the long haul! So let the transition begin. The key is to improve each week….Not get worse. The defense is another story.
ANSWER: White is the most talented quarterback in the room. I wrote about this before the season even started. For whatever reason, Freeze doesn’t want to throw White to the wolves. Freeze missed his window on this. If he wanted to try White out, then he should have done it against New Mexico. Instead, he went with Brown. You can’t start freshman White against Oklahoma. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.
Robert in Stapleton, Ala., writes …
I see where Hugh Freeze left some tire tracks on a number of his players subsequent to the dumpster fire that was Auburn’s loss to Arkansas. Normally I would hold my nose at the stink associated with a college coach vocally bashing his players in a press conference. It’s a new day however.
These players are now being paid handsomely to deliver. I believe that meets the definition of being “employed,” being compensated for performing a service. So, college players are now all about pay-for-play. I’m now a LOT less horrified at coaches calling them out for poor play, just like any boss would do. What say ya, Joe?
ANSWER: I appreciated the comments by former Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace after Freeze laid the blame on Brown and Thorne. Wallace was one of Freeze’s best quarterbacks, so it’s a bad look for Freeze that Wallace holds so much resentment towards his old coach. Resentment is a complex emotion, though. Maybe some of it stems from the fact that college quarterbacks are now getting paid millions and Wallace was born a decade too soon.
But Wallace is right. Freeze put those players in that position. Ultimately, it’s on the coach.
Mac in Mwanza, Tanzania, writes …
Offense: Maybe, the answer isn’t trying to make a size nine narrow foot fit comfortably, productively and efficiently into a size 12 extra-wide shoe. Jimbo Fisher was known for having a very complex offense that required quarterbacks with high and diverse skill sets. Prior to the New Mexico game, there was talk of Brown having a “narrower” playbook. He and the offense were productive. Yes, lesser competition, but productive. Freeze is going to run this dang offense in its entirety even if it kills us. Well it is. It feels like Gus Malzahn at times. Not much continuity or sequencing in play calling. At times, “Hey, let’s try this.”
Defense: On third-and-long, we seemed committed to rushing three and hoping the eight in coverage could stand up. They were six of nine on third-and-long, I believe. Yet, when we did blitz at other times, we were productive. At times our defense was good enough to frustrate [Bobby] Petrino and force a bench of the Arkansas quarterback for one series. Just not good enough when it needed to be.
So, on both offense and defense, is it the scheme or the players? The answer seems to be a combination of these issues. Ultimately what it comes down to is leadership, at all levels, from the players to the coaches. But as Colin Powell once said, “A plan is only good up until its moment of execution.”
ANSWER: The mailbag is world-wide! Ninth-grade Alabama geography required me to pull up Google Maps to find Tanzania. In Alabama, everyone was required to take geography in ninth grade, but I’m convinced that class was just an excuse for schools to stash coaches. I had a wrestling/baseball coach for ninth-grade geography. He read auto magazines the entire semester and gave everyone As. Sounds like Freeze’s film room this season.
MAILBAG
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Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”
