On SI's Keith Cummings sees a clear and obvious flaw in Hugh Freeze's game plan for his Auburn football team: Jarquez Hunter isn't being fed the ball enough. While Cummings believes Freeze is running an ineffective program capable of inspiring his players, he still believes AU will keep him in charge indefinitely.
"Ultimately, poor execution and coaching still lies at the core of Auburn's ceaseless troubles this year. In truth, the motivating factors which drive Pavia to win games might also be lacking from this Tigers roster at the moment," Cummings wrote. "Despite the obvious issues on offense, Freeze appears determined to cling onto control by his very fingernails.
"...it's all just massively frustrating for fairly simplistic reasons, but they keep on coming back like a troubling bout of indigestion. One player who does always show selfless commitment to the Tigers' cause is Hunter, so not using him to carry the team gets even more perplexing, especially after this latest car crash."
Freeze claimed he didn't give Hunter much burn (just two carries) in the second half against Vanderbilt in a 17-7 loss because he looked "gassed" in the second half of the Vanderbilt game after a heroic Week 9 showing in which he amassed 278 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns, and an additional 19 receiving yards on four catches.
“I don’t think he’s banged up, but he did look gassed to me,” Freeze said. “The second half, I can’t remember how many possessions we had but we didn’t have many. When we did, the last two for sure, were ‘we gotta go.’ So you’re not handing him the ball in those circumstances. But other than that, I don’t know that we had but two other possessions.”
Hugh Freeze cannot continue to waste stacked RB room as Auburn football's head coach
After Hunter moves onto the NFL this April, Freeze will still have a stacked RB room. Damari Alston and Jeremiah Cobb, both averaging over five yards per carry, will be back, and Class of 2025 star Alvin Henderson will be joining them with RB1 talent.
Freeze will also once again have a mobile QB in Deuce Knight if he doesn't find a new starter in the transfer portal.
Maybe Knight can pull off what Payton Thorne hasn't been able to, putting his RBs in good spots when they're not being force-fed HB dives. However, Freeze cannot allow the offense to lack big-play ability again, given all the skill position weapons at his disposal.
He's let two seasons slip away downplaying Hunter and watching Thorne take matters into his own hands time after time.
Freeze cannot do it again if he wants his Tigers coaching tenure to improve in any meaningful way.