Auburn Tiger News: Hugh Freeze on playing FCS opponents, defensive line success
In today's edition of Auburn Tigers News, Hugh Freeze talks about scheduling FCS opponents in the future and the success of the defensive line in Saturday's game
A lot of football teams start off their schedules each season with an opponent they are expected to beat as a way to warm up for the rest of the year. Auburn football opened the season against FCS opponent Alabama A&M and soundly beat the Bulldogs by 70 points. But instead of fueling another win in week two, the week one victory skyrocketed fan expectations only for the team to fall flat on its face against Cal.
For the past several years, the Tigers have played most of their non-conference games at the beginning of the year before diving into non-stop SEC action. In the opinion of head coach Hugh Freeze, this needs to change.
"There's no question, I've told our administration," Freeze said, per Auburn Undercover. "Schedule our FCS opponent down in the year — in between a Georgia and Missouri. That'd be my preference by far, to start off with a different opponent than that."
In part, beginning with a more formidable opponent could help manage expectations, but also allows the team a break against an easier team in the midst of the SEC grind.
Hugh Freeze talks d-line
If there was one highlight from Saturday's game, it was the performance of the Auburn football defense in the second half. The defense — which features many young players with a small amount of experience — struggled mightily in the first half, but were able to make adjustments and come out swinging in the third quarter.
"I thought statistically, we've done really good against the rush thus far and felt they crushed the pocket pretty good Saturday, too," coach Freeze said, per Auburn Undercover. "That guy stood in there and made some throws now and he took some hits. We pretty much stopped the run the second half with a light box, truthfully, which is encouraging to see. Don't know that you can do that every game against the competition that we're gonna face.
"They were able to do that Saturday and we rotated a lot of kids in there, a lot of players. There was definitely a positive coming out of Saturday, the way they adjusted and played in the second half. I think 14 of the points came off turnovers and they really gave us every chance in the world to win that game."
Despite the disaster that was the Auburn offense this past weekend, the improvements of the defense were the silver lining.