In today's edition of Auburn Tigers News, Hugh Freeze explains how play calling will work among personnel this season and the fall camp start date has been set
Auburn football head coach Hugh Freeze is known for his offensive game planning, play calling, and working with quarterbacks. In his first year on the Plains, nearly all of Freeze's attention was focused on recruiting, and there were several times throughout the 2023 season when game planning clearly fell short.
This year, Freeze has made a number of staffing changes, including hiring new coordinators on both sides of the ball. The Tigers brought in Derrick Nix from Ole Miss to be offensive coordinator and running backs coach on the Plains, so will he be the primary play caller? How involved will Freeze be?
"(Nix is) going to have free rein on the early downs, because we've all planned it and agreed upon it," Freeze said, per The Montgomery Advertiser. "... He's got free rein there. And Kent is probably going to do third-and-long for me. He's always done that and done really good. Obviously, we don't want to be in that."
Freeze explained one of the main issues last year was that he didn't understand former OC Phillip Montgomery's offensive planning, like the terminology, so he was unable to step in and help, but that will change this year.
"Now that it's back to our terminology that I'm very comfortable with, once we have a successful play or it's not third-and-long, I'm going to have the freedom and flexibility to jump in. Certainly with our landmarks, I usually will control those, for things that we want to see as shots and such.
"So, it'll be a mixture and a combination. But it'll be something that we've all agree upon, this is the shell of the game plan until we need to make adjustments."
Auburn football fall camp start date
And just like that, the summer is nearly over and fall camp is right around the corner. Auburn football begins its season at the end of August and will host Alabama A&M at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Sandwiched between Big Cat Weekend on July 27 — the Tigers' biggest recruiting event of the year — and the August 31 kickoff will be fall camp. Players will be expected to report to campus on July 30 and practice will begin on August 1. Then, over the next three weeks, the Tigers will participate in 15 preseason practices.