Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said on Monday that he thought he and his offensive coaching staff may have approached Saturday’s matchup against Cal with too big of a playbook.
“Our coaching staff feels like maybe we attempted to carry too much because of all the different looks they give you… Instead of us just saying ‘this is who we are and let’s do what we know we can do,’” Freeze said.
And because that may have played a part in what he called an “awful performance” from the Tigers’ offense, Freeze says Auburn will operate with a more condensed playbook moving forward.
“I can assure the package will not be big moving forward for this week,” Freeze said.
Asked about trimming down the playbook, Auburn junior running back Damari Alston says he expects that to be beneficial for the Tigers, who won’t have to do as much thinking while running out of Auburn’s base offense.
“I feel like with us, having a condensed playbook and simplifying the playbook will be good for us because it will allow us to play faster and less thinking,” Alston told reporters on Tuesday. “I feel like when we’re tied into our base offense and we’re playing faster and guys aren’t thinking and we’re running the stuff we’ve been running, I feel like it allows us to do more damage on the offensive side.”
Generally, a more simplified play sheet means a more run-heavy offensive attack. And while that isn’t always the case, some players on Auburn’s offense are hoping that to be true.
Of course, Alston and the others in Auburn’s running back room are hoping for more opportunities to carry the football.
However, they understand that isn’t always the best gameplan — especially when trying to come from behind and win a game like Auburn was on Saturday.
“I thought last game we were going to run the ball a lot more, but just the way the game was going with the turnovers that we were having, it’s hard for the coaches to see what calls to make,” Alston said.
When Auburn did run the football against Cal, it did so efficiently.
The Tigers’ stable of running backs were accountable for 87 rushing yards on 15 carries against the Golden Bears — good for an average of 5.8 yards per carry.
For the sake of comparison, Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne attempted 27 passes against Cal.
Asked about the run game during his press conference on Monday, Freeze said he felt the Tigers were “effective in running it,” while pointing to the same factors Alston did — field position, turnovers and the need to score quickly didn’t favor a rush-heavy attack.
Nevertheless, for those on the Tigers’ offense, the hope is that Auburn will lean on its run game a bit more.
“I want us to run the ball more,” offensive lineman Jeremiah Wright said on Tuesday. “We came out against a tough team like Cal and didn’t run the ball as much as I wanted to or the team wanted to.
“This week I feel like we’ll run the ball more, be physical, knock people off the ball and just show people what we’re capable of doing.”
