Jackson Arnold stated after Friday night's victory over Baylor that he didn't expect to run that much against the Bears. Indeed, the Auburn quarterback used his legs more than his arm to get by Dave Aranda's defense, rushing the ball 16 times for a team-high 137 yards and two touchdowns as the Tigers pulled out a 38-24 win.
On Monday, Auburn head football coach Hugh Freeze discussed how the Tigers were able to utilize Arnold's running ability.
"It totally depends what's needed to win," he said. "That's always been my philosophy of offensive football. What is it for this game that's going to help us win the football game? If that's needed and that's what the game calls for, I think he's very capable and willing to do that. So it's all about the flow of the game and how that's going. Some of those were called runs, some were pulling it down and using his legs. We'll go into every game being willing to do that, for sure."
It was Arnold's legs that got the Tigers on the board for the first time. On the 12th play of what would be a 96-yard touchdown drive, Arnold found no receivers open and took off, rushing 24 yards into the end zone to put Auburn up 7-3.
The Oklahoma transfer continued to make big plays by running the ball, constantly getting out of situations and moving the chains.
On the game's biggest play, Arnold called his own number. With the Tigers clinging to a seven-point lead and facing 4th-and-1 from Baylor's 27-yard line, Auburn ran a fake handoff, and Arnold went untouched into the end zone to basically seal the win.
For Freeze, Arnold's ability to take care of the ball (the Tigers had zero turnovers) was impressive. The coach did regret letting the quarterback throw one pass when Auburn was gashing the Bears on the ground.
"He (Arnold) was really patient," Freeze said. "He only had one play where I thought he was careless with the ball, and that was the pressure one. I allowed him, and I regret it. We had a drive where we were really getting some chunk yards, and it was second-and-four, and allowed him to throw an RPO to Malcolm (Simmons). In normal situations, that's fine, but the run was another gash. (Jeremiah) Cobb was going to rip that counter off for a lot of yards. That's on me. I gave him the green light to do it even though the safeties. They just were not going to attach themselves to the box. They were sitting at 10 yards and were not moving. Our normal rule for that is that you hand the ball off, but boy, I get greedy sometimes. It's hard when you have the receivers we have. But you're averaging about seven yards a gain, you probably need to fight that urge to take the shot there."