Auburn head football coach Hugh Freeze sat down with the media on Monday. These are things he said about Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Bruce Pearl retiring.
Opening remarks…
“First, congratulations to Coach Pearl. His record speaks for itself – the Final Fours, SEC titles, his draft picks, NCAA Tournaments. Truthfully, all of that is great, but he’s truly one of the best men that I’ve ever met. He’s endeared himself to me as a friend, has been there every step of the way for me. I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone that makes everyone in the room feel honored like he does. I know I’ll still get to laugh with him and see him at the lake and be around him, but certainly will miss being in the foxhole together somewhat. But the good thing is, congratulations to his son, Steven, on this great opportunity to step in and start his career as a head coach at a wonderful place like Auburn. He’s put in years of investment in getting this program where it is. Happy for Steven, he’s also a good friend. Look forward to developing a deeper relationship with him like I have with his father, Bruce. To Brandy and Bruce, congratulations. I have no idea what’s next for him, who knows. But I know they’ll have fun and enjoy some times together. So congratulations there.
“Disappointing loss. The plays were there for us to have a chance to beat a quality opponent on the road in this league. We’ve got to learn how to win those games, and it starts with us as coaches. There were a lot of good things on that film. The thing I point out first is the passion and the resilience I thought our kids played with in a difficult environment and getting some difficult breaks. They continued to fight the entire 60 minutes, and we had a chance to win the football game. Again, there’s certainly a lot of things we can improve upon, but it was fun to watch them compete. We’re really closer, and we’ll get to get tested again, certainly, with an excellent top-10 team on the road at (Texas) A&M. Disappointing, it stings, but we’ve got to put it behind us and move on to A&M, for sure.”
On the sacks in the Oklahoma game…
“There’s five that I don’t think (Jackson Arnold) could do anything about. There’s five that I think he’s got to trust that our receivers in one-on-ones will protect him and make a play. So I thought it was dead down the middle, 50-50. He and I met yesterday, watched everything. Tough environment, tough defense, but we’ve got to trust our guys. Good things happened when he did that, and we’ve just got to continue to work to improve that. Don’t think he could do a whole lot about five of them, but there’s 50 percent that I think the ball’s got to come out.”
On adjustments that can be made in pass protection…
“That’s a tough team to roll out against because of the way they play their edges. That’s nice if you can do that, but dangerous when you half the field against them and the way they get up the field and we’re really quick off the edges. Our chip game was pretty good to us. Unfortunately when we weren’t in it … two-minute drill, they did that to us last year and it is very difficult. But the times we were able to get in and our chip stuff, we had time. I thought we had some really good plan to check to some of their all-out pressure, and we hurt them with it a few times. They made some adjustments to that, too, but a lot of it came from just internal twist and things. Their kids played extremely hard, you got to give them credit. There’s one that I thought Damari (Alston) had a great cut on a guy and he gets up and still makes a play. The ball probably should’ve been out. That’s a really good defense. I don’t think rolling out was an option against them, but we have got to strain and get better and get the ball out those times that we did have some shots and some one-on-ones.”
On special teams issues…
“Well, Monday is about the truth, and you know I am a positive guy and we’re going to get better, but it’s hard not to say that our special teams in that game is probably the difference on the scoreboard. Even with everything else that happened. I love them all and we are going to play the next play, but starting three possessions inside the 10-yard line against them, and giving them the ball inside the 20-yard line, and catching a punt that is going into the endzone. We got an onside kick that I think was going to go 10 yards and they are just watching and I think we are going to get, and we recovered it at nine-and-a-half (yards). Missing a field goal. It was not a good outing for us at all. I promise you that has been addressed heavily, and it has to improve. We have a dangerous return guy, but if we can’t coach and execute properly to give us the ball at least at the 20- to 25-yard line, then we need to fair catch everything. Our offense is good enough, but it’s no fun starting inside the 10 against teams like that. We overcame it a little bit, but there is no sugar-coating the special teams play of that game.”
On taking shots down the field in the pass game…
“People can criticize, and they’re going to, whether I throw it downfield or I don’t run it enough. The criticism is coming; it doesn’t matter. I always knew we could. Just like there are things we saw Saturday from the Oklahoma defense we haven’t seen in the three games, and things people haven’t seen in us in three games. I was very confident that we could push the ball down the field, and it is good to see them do that and have success. The crazy thing is that we should have hit two more that I think changed the game. You have to make those plays. In one of them, Cam (Coleman) changed gears, and if he never stops, I think he runs right through it for a 75-yard touchdown. Then, obviously, the one where he is seven yards behind the defender for a touchdown and we don’t hit him. And that’s as poorly as we played on special teams, and yet we still had a chance to win the game, among other things that happened. There are a lot of positives there, but we have to make more of those. But it was good to see us push it down the field.”
On issues outside his control…
“There were quite a few that I disagreed with. I have great respect for our SEC office and the job that they do, and they have a tough job. It’s a fine line. You want so badly to defend your team, your players, your university. It’s a difficult position. I try to have respect for all sides. It’s certainly hard to just accept. My grandfather always told me that life’s not fair, get used to it, and move on. That’s been my approach this morning for our team. We’re going to move on to (Texas) A&M. I think everybody has their own opinion of the different calls made or not made in any given game. I know everybody shares an opinion on those in this game, and I share mine. I have voiced those to the people that it matters to, but ultimately, we can’t do anything about it. We have to turn the page and move on to A&M.”
On receivers not finishing routes possibly contributing to sacks…
“No, maybe one of the five. I think if our guy had taken a better release, he probably would have given him a shot at the one-on-one ball. We got them in some one-on-ones and our guys are running pretty good routes and let’s give him a chance. I tell that receiver room, ‘Look, if he does that, it’s on you, man. You better protect him. Because I’m telling him he can do it and to get rid of the football.’ I think there was one and then, obviously, the one that he did throw that we missed. I don’t know, I thought we broke out of the route. Anytime you’re running any kind of a vertical route and there’s a change of speed, that shouldn’t happen, but I think there was one that he probably would’ve gotten out of his hand if the release were a little cleaner.”
On having injured players back this week…
“Yeah, we were pretty fortunate. Jeremiah Cobb has got a hip pointer, but I think he’ll be fine. I think Amaris (Williams) will be much better. Jay Crawford is the one that is kind of, we’ll see. Monday is a total walk-through, so it’s hard to judge anything about how he really feel today. Connor Lew obviously left the game. He’ll try to go. He’s not one to miss much. It’s just a sprained MCL, so I think he’ll go. I think that’s it. So, we were pretty fortunate because it was a really physical game.”
On Kail Ellis stepping in at center when Connor Lew was out…
“I believe in those guys. They had some tough looks. They threw a lot at us and I thought that Kail (Ellis) came in and did solid in an environment like that. It was a difficult environment, hard to hear and we, unfortunately, weren’t disciplined enough that we had too many penalties. Again, we did have some of that at Baylor also. We’ve got to get that cleaned up. We are looking at different options for that, but I thought Kail held his own and did okay. Got to send the calls most of the time. Little late on the snap one time that cost us a false start, just having a hard time hearing and making his calls, but that’s kind of to be expected in his first outing. He’s going to be a really good player.”
On balancing the run game and pass game…
“If you take away the sacks, we averaged 4.3 or (4.5) yards per rush. That’s a pretty good average in this league. I probably should have forced the run a little more, maybe, looking back. But it was tough sledding in there to get those yards and I thought we had things in the passing game that our guys could win on. I felt like that was our best chance to win the game and looking at the film, again, there are things to improve on, but we had a chance to make plays. If you take away … if you get the scoop-and-score and you take away our special team errors, we’ve got a real shot to win that football game. And even with all of that happening, you go up 17-16 and that’s after a missing touchdown throw that was there. So, it’s hard to argue that against that good of a football team, that the plan was terrible, but certainly you’d like to run it a little more. I don’t know that dropping back that many times is going to win a lot of games in this league. I was proud of our defense again. I mean they stuffed their run really, really well, and I thought they contained the quarterback run really well also. So, there’s a lot of good things to point at.”
On the defense’s performance at Oklahoma…
“We were really good on third down. A lot of guys played a lot of snaps up front. I didn’t think our pass rush was as fresh as it was at the beginning. Then, give (Oklahoma) credit. They made two really explosive plays on the last drive that got them into scoring territory. We had a (missed assignment) on the touchdown from a young kid, but those happen. They have players that made good plays, and they made the drive when they had to, but if our defense plays like that, they’ll keep us in a lot of games.”
On holding three of four opponents under 100 yards rushing…
“(DJ Durkin) is going to have a good plan, and our kids are playing hard over there, and up front we’ve stopped the run. People like Oklahoma and (Texas) A&M are going to have some yards on you. They have really good talent. These next few weeks is tough sledding. It’s probably unreasonable to think that our defense can just do that all of the time, but to this point they have. I think those young kids are getting better. We played (Blake) Woodby, (AnQuon Fegans) and (Eric) Winters a lot more in that game, so you have three true freshman that are playing in some of the toughest environments in America against some of the best talent in America, and I thought they got better. Kensley (Louidor-Faustin) had a solid game and played well. Without Jay (Crawford), I thought Rayshawn Pleasant played really solid. Kayin Lee is, obviously, one of our better guys. Xavier (Atkins) plays well. He still can make a mistake here and there that hurts you, but he’s full speed and going to give you his best. There’s a lot of young kids over there that are getting some quality experience.”
On Texas A&M’s offense…
“I haven’t watched as much film, I’ve had a lot going on today, but I’ve seen enough to know those two receivers are dynamic. Obviously Marcel Reed, we saw him last year, is super twitchy and can throw, run it. They have a great running game, best running game we’ve seen. This will test what Mike just asked about, with our run defense for sure. As soon as you commit to it, they’ve got people that can really make you pay. That’s an excellent football team, one that will be in the playoff discussion for sure.”
