Auburn football players and coaches speak to the media following their loss to the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday
It was another tough weekend for the Auburn football team. The Tigers took their first road trip of the season to Athens, GA, and walked away with another loss in conference play. At this point, everyone has heard about "patience" and "the rebuild" and while there is optimism for the future of Auburn football, there is just about zero hope that anything good can come from the rest of this season.
Head coach Hugh Freeze and several other Auburn football players shared their thoughts with the media following Saturday's 31-13 loss in Athens.
Hugh Freeze on Payton Thorne's decision to not hand the ball to Jarquez on the fourth-and-two in the fourth quarter, per Auburn Undercover:
"Yeah, he absolutely didn't go with what we had called. Payton's a thinker. He knows football. He decided to try to run some type of zone read there. I think everybody was a little confused. But we definitely weren't on the same page there. I should have used one of our timeouts there, when I saw things were going awry. But that's something we've got to learn from. And, again, we've got to coach better to where that's really not an option in that moment in time. We needed that. That was a big drive, man. We were moving the ball. We've got to talk through that and make sure that doesn't happen again."
Linebacker Dorian Mausi Jr. on the adversity the Tigers are facing, per Auburn Rivals:
“When times like this happen, you look inward. You look inwards at your team,” said senior linebacker Dorian Mausi Jr. “You look in on everybody and just demand more out of everybody, so it’s not really a one-person thing. It’s an everybody thing. So just demand more out of the person next to you and the results will come.”
DE Keldric Faulk on his goals for the bye week, per Auburn Undercover:
"Recovery," Faulk said. "A lot of guys banged up and of course, getting a head start on our opponent in two weeks. I wouldn't say we're gonna treat this as a bye week. We're gonna treat this as another week of preparation. Of course we're gonna take care of our bodies and make sure that we're mentally and physically ready for the next week, for Missouri when we play them. Yeah, we're gonna prepare and recover like we should."
RB Jarquez Hunter on moving forward from the loss, per Auburn Undercover:
"I think we've just got to keep our head up," running back Jarquez Hunter said. "We've got to keep going, keep pushing forward. I mean, we got the talent to win a lot of games. We could be undefeated right now, but it's just the little things we mess up ourselves. I think we've just got to go in and don't get our head down."
Auburn football will have a bye week next weekend before hitting the road again to face Missouri on October 19.