Coach Hugh Freeze sat down with the media on Monday to discuss the Tigers’ upcoming tilt with the Razorbacks of Arkansas.
Opening remarks…
“Good morning to you. We had a full morning. Excited about opening SEC play at home at Jordan-Hare. Our fans were incredible again last week, which is pretty stinking amazing, truthfully. I was prepared to cancel Tiger Walk, and I came early to meet with recruits and saw all the people, and I said, ‘Well, we can’t do that.’ So our people are just really, really special as are our students and everyone that supports us, so we’re thankful for that. Good win, a lot of things to clean up, but a lot of positives also, and hopefully we can build on those things as we open SEC play.
Offensively, 40-plus points is good, 7.3 yards a play and 15 explosives, so solid there. Negatives, we turned the ball over. Can’t do that. And we weren’t great on third down, even though a couple of those were skewed a little bit with the last drive and the Hail Mary. So we’ve got to just continue to try to improve and be who we’re going to be there. We kind of sabotaged ourselves on the one red zone (possession) that we didn’t score a touchdown. Can’t do that against teams that we’re getting ready to face. Special teams-wise, kickoff returns were explosive. It changed their game plan. We won field position with that. Biggest glaring thing, both special teams and defensively, is the number of penalties that we had, which is not who we are. I’ve never had a team … that may be the most yards in penalties I’ve ever experienced. And unfortunately, some of them were selfish, and that’s disappointing and cannot happen.
Defensively, we did get two takeaways, but we seemed chaotic and unsure. Now I will say (New Mexico) had an open week, and they threw the kitchen sink at us. Every formation, every motion, every unbalanced and a quarterback they could run around and make plays, but we didn’t tackle well, didn’t think our effort was great, and hopefully that’s a good learning lesson for us. And I know DJ (Durkin) feels that way, and will work hard this week to make sure that we don’t see a repeat of that.
But a win, and hopefully we can build upon that as we turn our attention to what’s a much, much improved Arkansas team. This quarterback is another one that’s going to run around and make a lot of plays. They’ve got a really good offensive scheme that makes you prepare for a lot of different things, and experienced coaches that have done this a long time. O-line is probably the most improved unit that I’ve seen this year with the guys they brought in from the portal. They are really, really improved in the offensive line. Defensively, they’re very similar to last year, a lot of returners. Probably better in the secondary a little bit. Front’s the same guys, one linebacker’s back, so it’s pretty similar defensively, and they’re playing really, really hard right now. But offensively, it’s a lot to deal with, with the way they’re using their quarterback in the run game and in the pass game, and the running backs are really, really solid with an improved O-line.”
On what he saw from Hank Brown on film…
“Well, the game plan will be a little different, and so I won’t spend too much time – none of us will – after we clean this tape up today, we’ll do the few corrections that he had. Truthfully, he had three things that we need to get corrected, other than his clock awareness has got to improve. But he had two times he got us late in the clock. One was a delay, and he did not have to even get out of that play. He was thinking a little too much. So awareness of clock stuff, but the three things that he did there, one was a really poor choice on a rollout pass. Can’t do that. The other two were not necessarily bad passes.
There’s just a better option on certain things, whether you need to throw into pressure here, or you did not need to check out of this, it was not man coverage. That just comes with experience. And those were really the only three things. He got us in the right runs, 100% of his checks were right. So his decision-making was good, his execution was good. Could have had a higher percentage of completions, I think. Had a drop by Perry (Thompson), and had a couple of wet ball issues, probably, that that hurt some there at the end of the second (quarter) as we had no time outs, so we weren’t getting a dry ball in. So I was pleased with his first performance, for sure, and next week will be a bigger test for him.”
On defensive adjustments at halftime…
“I definitely think DJ and his staff are one of the better staffs at adjusting at halftime, but they don’t lack in preparation effort either. They had a lot to prepare for, and we didn’t see a lot of this, all of the X-off motions and extra tackle in the game. It was just a lot coming at us pretty fast there in the first half. But no excuse for us. Several of those plays, we’re in post high safety, and the high safety, when the quarterback starts scrambling around, decides he needs to not be a post high safety anymore. Let me run up and try to help my friends. No – if you’re deep, you stay deep. And that happened twice.
Our kids have to understand that and execute that. If we’re in one-high and you’re the post safety, then be the post safety. And that hurt us a couple of times, and we didn’t contain the quarterback very well. I thought we looked sluggish, whether it was the wet field or turf or too much workload. Dom (Studzinski) got me all the stats from last week on what all of our GPS stuff says on our workload. And it was heavier, probably because we chose to practice in a manner that we let the play go on and on with a quarterback running around. It looked like we were tired. I thought we played slow and not very disciplined, too many penalties, and we’re not playing with poise when we’re in position to make a play as a DB. That’s what I felt like. But to answer your question, I think DJ and them do a really nice job of adjusting at halftime.”
On Brandon Frazier and other injuries…
“He is unfortunately having surgery tomorrow to put a pin in his foot. So he will be out for an extended period of time, which hurts us. He was really playing at a high level for us, so that’s disappointing. I hate that for him, and I hope he can make it back for some key games down the stretch. Cam (Coleman) and Too Tall (Izavion Miller), it’s too early to tell. We are hopeful, but it’s too early to say. Kayin (Lee), I would expect to play. He probably could have gone back in, but we chose to hold him out if we could. His is just a calf strain, but I feel confident he will try to return this week.”
On Micah Riley and other tight ends picking up the slack with Frazier injured…
“He has definitely improved. He has matured in handling how you go about doing things in general. We are thrilled to have him. We are going to need him a lot now. He is going to play a lot of snaps. He, Rivaldo (Fairweather), Luke (Deal) bring different skill sets, and we use them all. We are going to move someone else in that room. We really want to go big at tight end, and we were just getting to that discussion before Kirk came to get me and told me it was time for the press conference. We need someone with build to put on the jersey that resembles a tight end.”
On the performance of the offensive line…
“I thought we were really solid in the pass protection. Very little pressure. Tyler Johnson gave up one pressure and rest of the time I thought Hank (Brown) stood in there and delivered the ball to the right reads and went through the progressions. In order to do that, you have to have protection and I thought it was pretty solid. There was only one pressure, truthfully, other than the sprint out where they added on a rusher, but we still threw a touchdown. In the pocket, I thought it was pretty clean. I think all of those guys did a nice job.”
“Running game wise, I thought (Bradyn) Joiner did really well. It was good to see a young kid. Here’s the thing, I really, really and I know the media and everybody wants everything now, but I’ve told you the way I’m going to build this program along with our staff and the most enjoyable thing about that to me is kids like that (Joiner). And Cam Coleman. And Malik Blocton. And (Jamonta) Waller. They don’t even know anything about this entitlement syndrome yet and anything. They just love playing for Auburn. And that is the culture we want to build and win with. Joiner is a kid that I honestly thought that maybe we should consider that he needs to go somewhere else at some point and here the guy is playing significant snaps for us and will this week again. You don’t have to worry about his passion for playing when he puts that Auburn jersey on because it stinking means something to him. And we need more and more and more of those guys being recruited to this place that don’t come in and go like, ‘I’ve been around this game for four years. I want my NIL money and I think I’ve already arrived.’ And they don’t work very hard when practice comes around. So I’m enjoying the heck out of coaching people like him and those young kids that it means something to.”
On Bobby Petrino’s Arkansas offense…
“I haven’t watched them on offense yet. I’ve been watching their defense yesterday and this morning, but I did ask DJ (Durkin) yesterday, ‘Has anything changed from what he is normally?’ and he said it’s very similar. What makes him so different is typically it’s a very, very good mixture of the pro-style offense with some of the college flare in it and doing it out of a lot of mixed sets with a lot of tight ends that present extra gaps in the run game. Yet, he’s able to throw all of the three-level routes and play-action off of it also. If you can get 12-personnel and be effective in running the ball and take shots out of it, that’s scary. That’s a scary world to live in.”
Follow up on if Coach Freeze has studied him and adopted some of his concepts…
“I wouldn’t say that. He and his son actually came to visit me when I was at Liberty and we talked some ball then, but it’s not like I’ve studied a lot of the stuff that they do. I’m pretty set in my ways with what we do, and it’s been successful most places. Usually when I venture out and try to do things I don’t have answers to I’m probably not very good. I may not be very good at what I know, but I know I’m not very good at stuff I don’t know.”
On muffed punts and potential changes in the return game…
“The most important thing after a dadgum special teams play is we have the ball, and that’s getting frustrating. Certainly it’s not something we beat our kids up over, but I’ve already met with special teams and we’re going to figure out who the best option is back there to secure the ball first and that would give us an opportunity to maybe get a return. Keionte (Scott) has been very dangerous when he does (that) and has been pretty solid, but we did look at everything. I think we have to get Malcolm Simmons some touches. Is he ready to handle that? Not too much seems too big for him because he, again, is another one of those kids you just love being around. He came into my office this morning just to sit down and talk. He’s just a kid. None of the moments seem too big for him because he’s grown up just playing ball in the yard. That’s the kind of way he approaches practice every day and the games. It’s fun to see that. It wouldn’t shock me if he’s pretty natural back there. He’s probably our second best punter on the team, too.”
On the advantage of running a 3-2 defensive front…
“It’s only good against certain things. I don’t think any of us believe that’s the answer when you’re playing 12-personnel Arkansas. I don’t think you’re going to see us in that, but with (New Mexico) we felt like we could stop the run pretty much against them. They did get some explosive runs against it, which it’s a light box and I like running against those boxes. I called several the other night against their five-man boxes, and we had some really explosive runs. You should have a lot of support perimeter wise for those quarterbacks who do what (Devon Dampier) did. We just didn’t execute it very well when we were in those fronts. Every game can change, but typically for DJ (Durkin) that’s more of a third-down, coverage front that we play. We did play quite a bit of that against them.”
On the biggest threat Arkansas poses…
“Well, a good football team that’s well coached. They are deep at some places, and they look like an SEC football team, particularly the O-line, running backs and tight ends. The quarterback’s very, very dangerous. Big defensive line, the inside guys are huge. (Number) 40 (Landon Jackson) is a preseason all-SEC guy at defensive end. They replaced a couple linebackers, but these guys seem solid. The secondary, they’re going to challenge you. We haven’t been challenged like this. They are going to get up press you and will bring a mixture of quarters, man and some three, but they disguise it pretty good. But in all of them, they’ll get up and press you, so it’s going to test us. How do we handle getting off the ball in press technique? We haven’t seen a lot of that. Cal’s DB’s were pretty good but they were press bail. It wasn’t true press, these guys will truly press you.”
On relying more heavily on the run game…
“I have said it before, I just believe in being balanced, and I think we were really balanced the other night. I don’t know the numbers run-to-pass, but the yards were very, very balanced. Some of it is predicated on how we feel about our match up, O-Line against their box. Some of it is predicated on the box count and how many is in it as opposed to us throwing the football with it. So, it is just a combination, it is a mixture. I know in the past, people would talk about, ‘Freeze just wants to throw it, throw it, throw it,’ but that has never been the case for me, ever. I like to hand it off a lot. But that average per carry has got to be pretty good, and we have been good in three games, we are above seven yards a carry. But the number of actual handoffs, every game is different based on those things I just mentioned.”
On Hank Brown continuing to improve at the QB position…
“I’m not much on slack. He’s got to get it done. You have a veteran senior behind him in Payton (Thorne) that we still have belief in. But Hank (Brown) looked poised. I don’t think the moments are too big for him now. What I do think is that we as coaches do have to make sure is that when we’ve already done base downs and I go in there and I look on the board and my immediate reaction is ‘No. We’re not going to do all that. We’re not even going to start this discussion like this.’ So I think we’ve got to be careful. You have to execute at a high level at the quarterback position here to have a chance to win games. Or you have to find one that will. We saw that in the Cal game and we saw it now. He executed at a high level. We won a football game. It’s going to be tougher now. That doesn’t mean that the game plan has to be exquisite. It doesn’t have to be some 84 plays that we have to have to win the game. Let’s do the plays that schematically match up with what they do and let’s do them very, very well and let’s do them over and over again with the options that we have off of them and I think Hank handled all that just fine.
The hardest thing will be the checks. I don’t like to just call and haul things or (Derrick) Nix to call and haul things knowing it can be bad if they do this look, it’s no good. We really love this play. But there is some you can. You can run an inside zone against anything. And it’s great. They may have an extra hat. But you really don’t want to run certain plays against certain things and that’s where with the quarterback, how many of those can he handle is what we’ve got to decide. I walked in and saw four on the board and I said, ‘That’s too many already so you better figure out your favorite ones.’ So I think it’s just us making sure. As far as Hank goes, he’s got to play at a high level so let’s find out what he can do at a high level.”
On when he realized Hank Brown could handle being Auburn’s starting QB…
“So, I’ve recruited Hank since he’s a tenth grader at Liberty. He was committed to us there. I don’t know if you all know that or not. So, I’ve believed in Hank a long time and just got to know him and his family really, really well because they came on a lot of visits and a lot of games. And I’ve always felt like he had this “it” factor to him as an individual. That doesn’t always translate into him having the “it” factor in making plays, but every opportunity that he got here, even though the sample size was really, really small, every single time that he has got that opportunity it seemed natural for him. So, I’ve always had this sneaky belief that he had something to him, and now we are getting ready to find out at what level, there’s not questions he does, but what level is that at right now compared to the rest of the SEC. We are getting ready to find out.”
On Malcolm Simmons and expanding his role…
“Understanding what to do on every single call that we have in the call book for that week. And that’s been the biggest struggle, and I’m not beating him up at all because I love this kid. Love him. I love everything about him. He’s a hundred miles an hour at everything he does with a smile on his face, but then everything he does … might be a corner route when it wasn’t even close to what we were supposed to be doing, and he’s getting better, timing-wise. He deserves to be on the field some, so I do think it’s time – I did say that before I came down – it’s time for us to have a package, and let’s quit trying to “All right, well, we’re worried if you put him in here” and “All right, great, I’ll find another box on call sheet that just says Malcolm.” And he can do that. We feel good about these right now, and just grow with him because he’s good enough to be on the field.”
On Kaleb Harris and other young players in the secondary…
“Unbelievable, how about that story? We weren’t even going to offer him (Harris), but then I went to watch him practice and he kind of reminds me of Mike Hilton when I wasn’t going to offer him either, and now he is the highest-paid nickel in the NFL. I went and watched him practice and I said, ‘Whoa, this guy is the alpha dog on the team.’ He is the most physical guy we have in the secondary right now. We still have growth to take place, I don’t think we are playing with great poise back there, or discipline. Our eyes are in bad spots at times, we’re handsy. I thought Jay Crawford came in and did really good. We didn’t put him in until the fourth quarter, but I thought he played really solid and looked under control and poised. Obviously, Kayin Lee didn’t play, and we need him to play well there, and it’s something I’m selling to the 2025 class is that we need big-time safeties and big-time corners to come in and help us. They are out there, we just have to get them.”
Transcript via Auburn Athletics.
