Hugh Freeze releases definitive statement on Auburn football's offensive performance, use of playmakers

A common complaint against the Auburn football team this season has been the admittedly conservative use of many high-value players. Monday, head coach Hugh Freeze made a strong statement that many fans have surely been looking for.

Following Saturday’s win against ULM, Coach Freeze was pleased with his team’s performance and admitted one of the biggest changes was “get[ing] our playmakers involved early" before divulging further.

"We [also] need to win first down. When we’ve done those two things we’ve been able to kind of get in a rhythm that gave us confidence. I think that showed Saturday and kind of continued throughout the game. One of the secrets to that was us just not carrying very much. The temptation when you’re playing a really good defense like (Texas) A&M is that we have to do a lot of things to try to keep them guessing on what kind of blocking scheme is coming, and then all of the sudden you’re not playing with great confidence in what you’re doing. We’ve been guilty of that some this year, and our kids play a lot better when they feel comfortable that let’s just go execute who we are," Freeze said.

It seems Freeze is aware of the common complaint that he has not been using players like Jarquez Hunter and Cam Coleman to their fullest, as he stated that the Tigers found themselves winning because “we won first down and we were able to get into rhythms and [got] guys involved early besides just Jarquez (Hunter).”

Coach Freeze did mention his hesitancy to advertise chances at star performances from players like Cam Coleman.

“I would love to answer that and say absolutely we are throwing to him eight times, but I don’t get to dictate the coverages. Yes, we could design a play to take a shot to him, but it is really hard to design a play that you guarantee he is going to get a short route thrown to him because I don't know, they could be in cover two. They might be in tight man, it is really hard. It just happened that early in the game Saturday, we had some RPO opportunities, and every one of them was kind of to him and they had a couple third down throws where they had a little mesh route and he was the option on that. I don’t know that pre-snap that he will be, but I would love to say that he is going to get eight and Malcom (Simmons) is going to get eight and Perry (Thompson) is going to get eight and Dre (KeAndre Lambert-Smith) is going to get eight, but that’s very difficult for a coach to know where the ball is going to go when you call one of those pass plays” said Freeze.

All things considered, it appears that the Tigers are headed in the right direction ahead of their Saturday test against Texas A&M.