Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze sat down with the media for the very first game week of the 2024 season.
Opening statement…
“Congratulations to soccer starting out 3-0 and Coach Hoppa’s doing a great job there. Also good luck to all the other sports kicking off their season this week. We wish them the best as they represent Auburn. Congrats to Chris Williams, national assistant coach of the year for (men’s) golf, very deserving. And our thoughts and prayers really are with the family of Caden Tellier over at Morgan Academy in Selma and Coach Webb as they deal with tragic loss of one of their teammates and a son. Just can’t imagine the difficulty that they’re going through, so our thoughts and prayers are with them.
Excited it’s game week. I let the staff off yesterday for our kind of last Sunday we will have off for awhile, after the mock game Saturday. I know that they enjoyed being with their families. I got my last round of golf in for the foreseeable future. Probably need to suspend Brandon Frazier and (Griffin) Speaks for a quarter or something for the slow play in front of me, it was horrendous. Learn how to play the game faster if you’re going to play. It was a beautiful day yesterday. We all got to enjoy with our families, and now we’re excited about game week for sure, it’s always just full of anticipation.
I think most of you think that those of us who have done this awhile know what to expect from our team. That’s so far from the truth, at least for me. I think you really are two or three games in before you’re really like, ‘All right, this is who we really are and what we can do.’ And so, as much as I’ve enjoyed preparing and coaching this team and being with this staff, I still think it’s an accurate statement to say I still don’t know exactly who we are just yet. I think we’re better at a lot of spots, for sure, but you’ve got to go prove it each and every Saturday, and so that’s something that I’m anxious to see for sure.
Alabama A&M, looking forward to hosting them in Jordan-Hare. It’s our second straight year of sold-out tickets. I know it’s wear orange night. Looking forward to having all of our great, great fans in that stadium and to see how Jordan-Hare is going to kick off the ‘24 season and to see their support for our players. So excited about that. A&M’s got several unknowns. Coach (Connell) Maynor, I don’t know personally, but has a great reputation of being a really good football coach.
The quarterback battle is a little bit up in the air, I think. At least we can’t find out exactly what the plan is there. They’ve got a returner and also a transfer that we’re trying to study a little of both. We do know they got a really good running back in 7 (Donovan Eaglin), he’s a heck of a running back. Love 84 (Donovan Payne) at tight end. Offensive lines had several all-conference performers, big group there. Wide receivers are led by 6 (Keenan Hambrick) and 3 (Jacolby Hewitt). They’re big rangy guys, but definitely the quarterback. (Aveon) Smith is the transfer from Miami, Ohio, he’s a dual threat guy, and (Cornelious) Brown has played at Georgia State, and he’s got a big arm, real big arm. So I think they do want to run the football, we’ve got to stop the run and try to make it one-dimensional. But they’ve got some really talented kids on that side of the football. Defensively, the free safety is an all-conference performer, number 6 (Emari Pait). Number 7 (Jamarion Ellis) the defensive end is a twitchy, twitchy pass rusher, one that we’ve got to pay attention to. Then they’re loaded with a bunch of transfers on that side, and with a new defensive coordinator, who’s coming from South Carolina State, and another DC is coming from Grambling State. Trying to figure out what that looks like is kind of a guessing game for sure for us. Is it what you saw at South Carolina State, is it what you saw at Grambling, is it a combination?
The staff is new with a lot of transfers. So I usually like to know, in my mind, on third-and-one we really, really want to run it to this defensive lineman. I don’t know any of that, really, going into this game. So there’s several unknowns. I do know two of their transfer, they were at Liberty, they’re both really, really solid players. So they’ve got several on that side, again, with a totally new defensive staff. So the game-planning for us offensively takes a little guesswork. But you’ve got to be able to adjust and be ready to go with whatever we see and whatever they go with as the play. So we’re excited again, Jordan-Hare at home for the ’24 season to kickoff, and I know our kids will be ready and we’re anxious for kickoff.”
On swapping players on the left side of the offensive line…
“I think it will be a few games in before we settle into exactly what it looks like. We’re actually rotating Tyler Johnson, Percy (Lewis), (Dillon) Wade in kind of a three-way rotation along with Bradyn Joiner at the guard position. I think the most likely is that you’re going to see D-Wade play a little of both and rotate around him at the tackle position and see who plays the best. Ultimately, at some point, the film has to be the resume that is the ultimate decider. That’s life, and that’s football. Nothing can be given, it must be earned, week in and week out, by the way you practice and by the way you perform on a Saturday. It will take a little time to sort out exactly what that looks like from game-to-game. One thing I know is we will end you needing every one of them before the year’s over, and I hopefully we create great competitive depth there by rotating some around and keeping them fresher.”
On which coaches will be upstairs on gameday…
“Offensively, (Derrick) Nix, Kent (Austin), Maurice (Harris), (Darren) Hiller. Those four I know are in the box. That means Jesse (Stone) is probably down to communicate with Kent. Jake (Thornton) is down for sure. Marcus (Davis) is down. Ben Aigamaua is down. Defensively, DJ (Durkin) is still working on that. DJ will be down, he’s just debating on who’s best to keep down with him and who should go up.”
On the running back rotation…
“Keep them fresh and get them touches. All three of those guys are quality, quality players who add great value to us. Figuring out how to get those touches to those guys is important for sure.”
On KeAndre Lambert-Smith and his impact…
“One of the most impressive things about Dre is his leadership. The way he’s bringing along and helping teach and coach and mentor the Cams and Perrys and Malcolms and Bryces. I didn’t know that was the case when you get a transfer, but he’s just selfless in trying to help those guys. Glad to see him bounce back at the end of last week and he looked ready to play. He had a great few practices at the end of last week.”
On working in the young wide receivers…
“It’s pretty free rotation at that spot. I want them fresh. If someone runs a deep, deep route and it’s an incomplete or there is not an explosive play, I’d expect the next guy up. So we’re ready to snap the ball with a fresh route. I don’t like the idea of a guy running a streak route and it’s a deep incompletion and he’s running back to the line. I’ve never been a fan of that at all. I do think we’re at a spot right now where again, they’re going to have to go out there and do it. In the mock game Saturday, it was freely rotating among those top six guys. And a still too many missed assignments by the younger guys. We’re going to talk straight about that today when I give them the truth. One of the hardest things today is that you’ve got to figure out, as a coach, how you speak hard truth to a player. Especially a young one.
It seems like you used to, when you coached 10 years ago, you would put it on film and say that this is absolutely horrendous. You’ve got to get it right or you’re not going to play. You’ve got to be accountable to the team. And now, you really have to think about the way you say those things because the fine line between coaching is unfortunately, a part of our job, is to be critical evaluators. But I don’t ever want it to be personal. It seems that as life has changed, that everything is taken personal. So we as coaches have to do a great job at building relationships with our players where they know the guy honestly cares about me and when he says this is absurd with what you’re putting on film right now, it’s not some type of indication that you as a human being are less than in any way. It’s that you have to be accountable to some of your team. And some of those younger guys, you expect them to make some mistakes. You do. But we’re at a point in our journey here where we’re dependent upon them. I get that you may have a drop or you may mess up at the top end of a route, but when all other 10 get the signal exactly right and you’re asleep at the wheel and it destroys the play, that stings. That hurts. And we had about six of those and they were all from young kids.
But if we’re going to have this frequent rotation mindset, that’s got to change. They’re going to get challenged today with that. I expect you to see a good rotation there, early in the games especially. Obviously, if you get down to it, you got to have who you think gives you the best opportunity to win the football game out there, but I’m anxious to see all those guys jump out there and to see how they perform when it’s real.”
On Austin Keys’ availability and other potential injuries…
“In our staff meeting this morning in the medical report, our medical team felt like he (Austin Keys) was a probable. So we’ll see how he handles it. He has another day today to just walk through the day. I’m going to need to see something out of him Tuesday and Wednesday for me to feel that way. But that’s the way they felt about he and Keionte (Scott).”
On focusing on execution early in the season…
“Yeah, I think you feel comfortable with your base calls and that your quarterbacks understand the answers to certain issues. The front may be different than what you kind of plan for or certain alignments about backers, or coverages may be a little different. But some things can’t change: are there six in the box? Are seven in the box? I mean, those things come back to your base rules, and how do you handle that. And so early on in the game, you expect us to still execute our base stuff. When you get to the sideline and change a blocking scheme or something. But as far as, should the ball been handed off or should it have been thrown, you would expect us to handle that. And in pass protection, we’ve seen every look under the sun because of DJ (Durkin). You can’t use that as an excuse that all of a sudden they jumped in a different front, and you can’t pass protect it. So some of the base stuff you’d expect us to still be able to execute.”
On the depth chart…
“Honestly, you know how I feel about depth charts from day one. I think they’re ridiculous and not accurate. And I’m not trying to hide something from you. But, honestly, I don’t even know who we have – I haven’t looked at it – at left tackle. Honestly, it’s going to be Percy (Lewis) or Tyler (Johnson) or maybe (Dillon) Wade. I mean, I don’t know. And then defensively, we want to talk about defensive tackles. We’ve got six that we’re going to rotate in there. I could care less who goes out there on the first snap. I really don’t. I don’t care, and obviously, neither does DJ.
We got 37 starters, so you better play a lot of guys earlier in the year. Really I know it doesn’t. I mean, I’m laughing about it, but to some people it matters. You know, to some kid it matters, to some mama it matters. So we’ll list them all as starters. The ones we think have earned the right to roll out there and play, and I really do mean it. I have no clue who DJ and his staff or Vontrell (King-Williams) are rolling out in the defensive front to start the game. Are we in odd or even, I don’t know, but if you’re in even…. Those other six in the middle, they all have been first team, second team or blue, orange teams as we refer to it, or white teams. I don’t see a ton of drop off really, so that’s not really a smokescreen.”
On confidence in Payton Thorne running the offense…
“I’m very confident sitting here today. At the same time, I’ve said it every time since spring practice that ultimately he’s got to get the job done. I wouldn’t be going with him if I wasn’t confident in him. I’ve always believed in him and believe in him even more today than I did in January because of what I have seen, what I witnessed, and what I hear in meeting rooms and film rooms. I think he’s excited to prove that to a lot of people also.”
On Hank Brown and his ability at the No. 2 quarterback position…
“He still has ways to go in protections and the fixes that we need him to be able to make. Throws the deep ball extremely well. He needs to be a little more accurate than some of the others. Holden (Geriner) is still getting his share of reps and is doing quite well also. Hank’s biggest thing right now is slowing down when he has to slow down and make sure you get protected.”
On the punt returner position…
“Well, let’s say Keionte (Scott) is healthy. He’d probably be the first one to go in. It he’s not, then Dre (KeAndre Lambert-Smith) and then after that it would be Bryce (Cain) or Malcolm (Simmons). If we ever get into a situation where I just definitely must have possession of the football and it must be caught, I have great confidence in Will Upton also.”
On the kicking situation…
“Alex (McPherson) is much better. He’s getting better, but I don’t think he’ll be ready to go. But don’t hold me to that. So Towns (McGough) is prepared and getting ready to go. He had a really good week last week. So that’s where I think it’s headed. Alex did kick a little bit last Thursday, but I don’t think he will be quite ready for Saturday.”
On the statement he wants this team to make…
“I want us to play with a passion in Jordan-Hare that is one that will be consistent all year long, and a confident football team that looks like they love one another, that they love being together that shows in the way we play. And obviously the coach in me wants to see us play a smart brand of football which is taking care of the ball, no selfish pre-snap penalties that put you behind the chains, and obviously situational awareness. Understanding that it’s third-and-one I probably don’t need to get booed, because you’re going to fade balls in our RPO system, unless, you know, we’re going to go for it on fourth down.
This helmet-to-helmet, this communication deal is kind of helpful, stuff like that, truthfully, because I’m the world’s worst at getting to third-and-one and not calling off the RPOs, because I expect Payton or Hank or Holden (Geriner) to know the situation. Now I can feel a little better about those, but really want to see us passionate and (our) execution to be clean, about the sloppiness of penalties, taking care of the football on offense, we want to get it on defense and for us to be in a really smart situation on defense.”
On how he plans to utilize Sam Jackson in the RPO game…
“We’re glad that we have him and, you know, Robert (Lewis) and Malcolm (Simmons) and Bryce (Cain) all kind of in that slot position and all of them have skill sets. Three of the four will be freely rotating in the game. We’ll sort it out as the season goes, but everybody’s a little different. Sam’s definitely got some tools that you can use, then some of the speed sweep game, screen game, and then pass game. He’s even played some quarterback before. Who knows? You might see him as a wildcat quarterback. But glad we have him for sure.”
On what has validated his feelings of good culture and chemistry with this team…
“You don’t know how they’re going to perform when it gets real, but as far as the things we’ve continued to talk about since January to SEC Media Days to know is the chemistry and the culture difference that I feel in year two with the entire building. That has continued. I’ve had no second thoughts on that even as we’ve gone through the grind of camp. That third week is always a tough week with school starting, there’s no game, yet I still found a reason to feel good about what I’m seeing from the leadership of our team. Most people, inherently, are selfish. All of us. The great thing about football is nothing great happens by yourself. I’ve been around enough teams to know if they really can get it and understand it’s a team-first deal.
When you take yourself off the platform, which is hard because everybody want their stats and they have voices in their head telling them that you can win a game. Somebody is upset because their momma or daddy or uncle told them ‘Well, you didn’t get your share.’ We just won a game, man. We should be singing the fight song and rejoicing together that we did it together. What I sense from this team right now is that, and the only way that every happens is for it to be empowered by the players to lead that way. I can stand up and say it until I’m blue in the face, but if it becomes uncomfortable for you to be opposed to that, that culture and that chemistry, if it becomes unpopular in the locker room, then you’re on to something. That’s the reason that I’m hopeful.”
On the new helmet communication system and the coaches’ comfort with it…
“The players seem to be handling it pretty easily. It’s probably me more than anyone. I think I’m talking into it and I’m not because I’m not hitting the right button. I literally feel like I’m wearing one of the police belts. There’s just stuff everywhere and you have to hit the right button so it’s taken me some adjusting, for sure. The players have been pretty easy. I will say we had a little issue with ours in the stadium Saturday and I sure hope that’s not going to be the case Saturday night. They quickly got it fixed, but it was two plays. I hope that’s not the case and a reoccurring problem that you might have. They really couldn’t tell me what was wrong with it, but it’s taken some getting used to from the coaching standpoint. I think DJ (Durkin) handles it better than I do because he just uses a walkie talkie, but my hands are so full that I’m trying to use all of my button. Maybe that’s a mistake. I don’t know, but I do think there’s some benefits to it, for sure.”
Transcript provided by Auburn Athletics.
