Coach Hugh Freeze and quarterback Jackson Arnold sat down with the media following their win over the South Alabama. These are the things they said.
Auburn Head Coach Hugh Freeze
Opening statement…
“Happy to be 3 -0. We tied the school record for consecutive sellouts. We played 13 true or redshirt freshmen today. I think South Alabama is a solid football team. We’ve got a lot, obviously, to improve on. The goal today was to be 3-0 … 1-0 today and 3-0 headed into conference play. Our team achieved that. We’re going to celebrate that and hopefully get some folks healthy, get some rest this weekend and get ready to open conference play.”
Jackson Arnold, QB
On the offensive line’s performance…
“I thought they played their butts off again. Fantastic for the run game and a fantastic passing game. They picked up. They’re heating us up a good amount. They picked up blitzes phenomenally since we got sacked one time. So yeah…I’m proud of them.”
On the offensive line’s performance…
“I trust Jeremiah (Cobb), and that goes for every one of my backs, too. I thought Omar (Mabson II) played a great game today. It was very physical. The same thing with Damari Alston, too. Having a guy like Cobb that I know can run and get a dirty five yards just gives me peace of mind. Knowing in the RPO game if there’s any indecision at all, if I hand that ball, I know we’re go to get four or five yards.”
Jeremiah Cobb, RB
On back-to-back 100-yard games…
“It’s awesome, especially running behind a line like that. It is very rewarding.”
On ball security…
“All the coaches emphasize protecting the ball. That’s every position, so a good job doing that and we get other people opportunities to make plays. Then running behind that line makes it easy in the inside zone, so it is awesome to play with them.”
On playing with Jackson Arnold…
“It’s awesome. It makes the offense way more dynamic and harder to defend, and it’s just awesome to watch him run how he runs …. shoulder down, hitting people. It just shows you that he loves this team and the sport.”
Jeremiah Wright, OL
On the offensive line chemistry…
“That’s what we’ve been working on since spring ball. We got all the guys back healthy. We continue transitioning over fall camp, getting those guys back that were out from the whole spring. We just continued to stack those days in.”
On the improvement of the offensive line…
“It’s communicating with each other. In the past games, keeping the pocket clean. I feel like we did a better job today with width and the depth of the pocket. We still need to fix a few technique problems, but everything else still did better than that.”
Xavier Chaplin, OL
On pass protection…
“We were kind of disappointed with our game performance last week, so we knew we had to do something this week. We knew what we had to work on, so we did that and got it done.”
On these first three games as an offensive line…
“I feel like it’s really building our chemistry because we know we are going to get on each other. We know we are going to go until we can’t go anymore. Earlier we had a drive, 10 straight run plays, we just kept going, kept going and kept pushing rocks.”
Cam Coleman, WR
On the offensive efficiency…
“We have a little more to work on, there’s always room for improvement. But we’ve been executing pretty good, so we just need to keep it going.”
On his first TD catch…
“It felt good. Seeing the work I put in this offseason pay off. It really felt good.”
On how it feels to be 3-0…
“It feels great. It feels great to be 3-0.”
Keyron Crawford, BUCK
On South Alabama QB Bishop Davenport…
“He was a great quarterback. We knew we had to stop him on the scrambling, but we knew the game plan and what they like to do to attack the C and D area, so that was our game plan.”
On his development and progression…
“It’s just me staying humble and doing what I know best, following my path and not trying to get discouraged at anything bad coming my way and to be able to handle adversity. So, I just always continue to work and stay down until I come up – that’s my mindset.”
On the defense overall…
“Third down, I feel like we did great. We could have definitely played with a little bit more urgency and things of that nature, but we played good and we’re going to celebrate a win.”
On getting younger players out and building depth…
“I feel like it’s great because it’s their learning curve right now, it’s their first time being on the field at an SEC program. So just more of building their confidence each and every day throughout practice, throughout the week, really helps the preparation on Saturday.”
Kaleb Harris, DB
On what’s needed heading into SEC play…
“Just play the same as we did against South Alabama. We have to hold ourselves to a standard no matter who we play. Going into SEC play, it’s time to get back to work.”
On improving pass defense in the fourth quarter…
“We just started to make the ball bounce. It started to bounce our way. They executed, we didn’t execute. I had a bust, I flew down, could have held the seam a little bit. We just need to watch film and get better at it.”
