Auburn football: Hugh Freeze on the Tigers’ 2023 offensive line

While one could certainly point to many problems that the Auburn football team faced last season, one of the biggest ones was the offensive line. The Tigers did not expect to lose senior center Nick Brahms, and throughout the season other offensive linemen got injured and had to be replaced.

Although it was thought that there would be improvement in 2022 since nearly the entire offensive line group from the previous season were returning, it didn’t exactly pan out that way. The full blame, of course, cannot rest squarely on the offensive line’s shoulders, but struggles within that position group definitely affected the other positions on the offense.

Offensive linemen have been under-recruited on the Plains for several years. During Bryan Harsin’s two years at Auburn, the Tigers signed only three offensive linemen, and Auburn has signed no more than three linemen in eight out of the last ten years of recruiting.

It was a problem that was quite clear to new head coach Hugh Freeze when he was hired in late November, and he took immediate steps to address it. Freeze secured four offensive linemen out of high school in addition to one junior college offensive tackle. He also brought in three O-Line transfers, with the option to bring in a couple more during the next transfer window after spring practice. Per AL.com, Freeze has a plan on how to use to new recruits:

"“I have a certain belief in roster management and how to build a roster. I thought we got a really good mixture of young kids that we signed in high school,” Freeze said. We had some that were mid-year enrollees. And obviously, the portal guys who have played a lot of football, you depend on them to play. No one gets a starting job, but you don’t recruit those guys to sit around, for sure.”"

This fall, we can expect to see a lot of transfer talent on the field along the line of scrimmage for Auburn football with a lot of younger kids ready to learn and come up behind them, getting the Tigers prepared for the next several seasons on the Plains.