Auburn Tigers head football coach Hugh Freeze has several play-callers he relies on -- Derrick Nix handles first downs while Kent Austin oversees third down situations -- but it was freshman quarterback Deuce Knight who apparently helped make one of the biggest decisions of the game last night.
As CBS Sports' Shehan Jeyarajah relayed, Knight was able to influence Freeze on a fourth-down play-call, convincing him to keep the ball in Jackson Arnold's hands. AU converted and put the finishing touches on a 38-24 win over the Baylor Bears.
"On the sidelines, freshman quarterback Deuce Knight got in Freeze's ear: Why not give the ball to your best playmaker and see what happens? So Freeze put in the call," Jeyarajah wrote.
"Quarterback Jackson Arnold, in his first start as a Tiger, took the snap. He ran an RPO jet sweep with receiver Eric Singleton, but, seeing Baylor's linebackers over-pursue in the direction of the speedy Singleton, Arnold kept the ball and broke through untouched for a game-sealing 27-yard touchdown. The exclamation point capped off a 38-24 win against Baylor, a statement victory entering a crucial third season for Freeze on the Plains."
Knight likely just furthered his case to see the field as soon as humanly possible. Clearly, the Lucedale, Mississippi, native is situationally aware enough to make winning plays on the field. If he can do it off the field, it's hard not to see him being able to do it on the field.
Knight saw Arnold's hot hand, or rather, active legs, and got Freeze to ride them to a potentially season-defining victory in Waco. That sentence couldn't be healthier for the future of the program.
Auburn is set under center for the foreseeable future with Arnold. It's not a stretch to say he could end up being the most impactful Tigers QB the team has had since Nick Marshall, based on the dynamic playmaking we saw in Week 1.
Luckily, if anything happens, AU appears just fine with Knight as well.