Will Auburn football HC Hugh Freeze take over play-calling against UGA?

The honeymoon phase of the 2023 Auburn football season came to an abrupt end last weekend in College Station. After the Tigers’ offense put up a good showing against Samford, many thought the team, and Payton Thorne specifically, was beginning to figure things out.

However, the offense seemed to regress in the game against Texas A&M, struggling to move the ball downfield and convert on third downs. The Aggie defense sacked the mess out of Auburn’s quarterbacks and created multiple plays for negative yards.

Now the Tigers are looking ahead to this weekend’s contest, against #1 Georgia, and it’s clear that if something isn’t worked out on the offense this game will be a whole lot uglier than the one against Texas A&M.

When he was first putting together his coaching staff, head coach Hugh Freeze emphasized the fact that he hired offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery to call the plays. Though play-calling is one of Freeze’s specialties, he believed in today’s day and age of recruiting, with NIL and the transfer portal, that he was better off giving those duties up to Montgomery. But, after the first several games, will Freeze continue to stay out of play-calling?

"“Boy, this is something I’m struggling with,” Freeze said Monday when asked about the play-calling duties ahead of Saturday’s matchup with Georgia. “That’s all I probably need to say. I think Monty and them are doing a great job right now trying to correct the issues we all see”"

According to AL.com, the Tigers’ head coach has met multiple times with Montgomery since the A&M disaster, and the pair are trying to work through the issues. However, Freeze also knows that there are outside pressures. Auburn football fans want to see their team win, of course, but they also expect to see improvements week-to-week at the very least.

"“We’ve got to figure out our identity… I know, people don’t like to hear it,” Freeze said. “People want success now. They want you to win now, every single game. I get all of that. This is not my first rodeo with taking over a program that has struggled and I’m certainly not at all fazed.“I’m hungrier than ever to move forward and get better, and we will. Some of that’s going to help in recruiting, but in the meantime, you’ve got to get the ones you have better.”"

For now it seems like Freeze will leave the play-calling duties to Montgomery, but we can expect him to step in every now and again and ultimately take over if the Tigers do not see improvements on offense this weekend.