Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze has a bullseye focus this season when it comes to facing his opponents.
Their next matchup against Oklahoma is generating a lot of buzz, mainly because their QB Jackson Arnold will be returning to his former school. Plus, the formidable-looking Sooners have dominated their previous three opponents.
Both these combined have seemingly heightened the noise surrounding their trip to the OU Memorial Stadium.
When asked about it, Freeze nonchalantly brushed off any side stories involving the Sooners in his post-game conference following 31-15 victory over South Alabama.
"The noise won’t bother me at all," Freeze said. "You can ask Jackson to respond to that. I’m not on much anymore, I don’t even know what happens very much, so the only noise that will bother me is what I see on tape that we’ve got to get prepared for to play a road game in this league, which is always difficult against a really good team.
"That’s my total focus – finding a plan that gives him a chance and our offense and our defense a chance to have success in that environment against that team."
Being the head coach, Freeze also acknowledged where Arnold was coming from and that he might have some jitters returning to his former home turf, but was confident about him handling it with maturity.
"That’s easy for me, probably harder for Jackson, obviously, it’s a lot of emotion," Freeze said. "But he’s mature and he knows what it takes to win football games and being emotional about whatever happens in the past is not going to help us, and he knows that."
Auburn and Oklahoma battle on Sept. 20, with kick off coming at 2:30 p.m. CT.