Coach Freeze Looks back at Spring practice and previews Auburn’s A-Day
Auburn head football Coach Hugh Freeze has given the appearance in all his press conferences of being one of the more transparent coaches in college football. Monday’s talk was no different. Here are some of the takeaways from his statements.
Lowered Expectations
Coach had a lot to say about the A-day, coming up on April 8, starting by issuing a bit of a warning to Auburn fans. “Get the message out to the fans to not expect too much” Freeze implored the room of reporters. He followed that with - “I hope we can give the Auburn family, those that choose to come, a game that day that I hope that they can enjoy but, yet understand that gosh, we don’t know who we are offensively right now.”
Coach went on to speak about how, as a program, you don’t want to put too much on film in the Spring for other teams to look at and know Auburn thinks they might be good at. This all seemed to be an honest approach by the Tiger’s new coach to manage the expectations of the fan-base while at the same time keeping their enthusiasm up about the product that could be put on the field come Autumn. He informed the room of this week's schedule: Full contact practice Monday, Non-contact practice Wednesday, Walkthrough on Friday, Spring Game on Saturday.
A passionate plea for a new system
Coach free reiterated his thoughts on A-day games, one he has pressed for years, that they should be played against other schools. Even suggesting that all the proceeds from those games go to state charities. He made the tongue in cheek suggestion that Alabama play Troy while Auburn plays UAB. He indicated how this would reduce the chance of injuries by 50% over playing “ourselves” for the Spring game.
He made an outstanding point that both High School and NFL level teams get to play against other teams, why not college? He pushed the issue further saying that until something like that happens for college football that A-Day games will be nothing but uncomfortable days for coaches that don’t want to put anything out there for other teams to see and focus on.
Coach fields questions about offense
Interestingly, Coach Freeze stated that he considered the tight end position was the hardest to learn and play in this offense. He spoke very highly of the entire tight end room and once again mentioned Rivaldo Fairweather's outstanding ability to function int that position and was one of the best receivers on the team.
Speaking of receivers, the receiving corps has apparently improved dramatically in the last few practices and were learning where they needed to be and what they needed to do.
Coach talks defense
Freeze reminded everyone that the linebackers had the most difficult positions on defense, naming nearly the entire room as players that had improved through camp. He called every linebacker “solid” and said they are trying to get the correct verbiage and transitions down with the installation of the full defense.
He feels they will be good after the Fall when they get more reps in. Coach Freeze listed three defensive players by name as the most improved players on the team since camp started. Senior defensive lineman Mosiah Nasili-Kite, stating that he was extremely disruptive and impressive. Freshman phenom cornerback Kayin Lee, who he claims constantly flashes and catches the coaches' eyes. As well as Junior Safety Marquise Gilbert, noting he had made massive gain in Spring camp.
Coach gives high praise
The highlight of the press conference was Coach Freeze stating that Junior running back Jarquez Hunter was the “best running back he had ever coached.” Driving home the point, he gushed about how Hunter kept his mouth shut, did his job, and was the leader of this team. Sophomore running back Damari Alston and Junior transfer running back Brian Battie also got mentioned kindly with a hope that they can all stay healthy.
Coach seems concerned
The lowlight, if you will, of the press conference seemed to be with the three quarterbacks being brought up. Nothing negative was said.
Coach Freeze just seemed unimpressed for the most part, giving a few small generic comments before stating that all the quarterbacks had “better” days, but they were still looking for quarterback consistency and that they were still trying to discover what their bread and butter passing plays would be. He left it at he was hoping that the quarterbacks would respond to the competition of the room. He pretty much dismissed the subject after that and moved on to the next question.
Coach reviews last week's practices
Coach Freeze was really pleased with one thing from last week's practices. Tackling. He quipped that you always have to be worried when you don’t tackle well but that the defense looked good in that area so far. Last Wednesday was “totally dominated” by the offense. The Friday before, the defense was lights out.
“I left Friday thinking we are really good on defense and stink on offense. I left Wednesday thinking we stink on defense and are pretty good on offense. The truth is probably in the middle somewhere” - Hugh Freeze
In closing, if you have watched Coach Freeze speak enough you learn to see that he really hopes to be as transparent as he can while not giving away anything important. That being said, anyone watching this quarterback “battle” at this point has to believe one of two things. One, Coach Freeze is downplaying how good all three of his current quarterbacks are to fool opposing teams. Or the second option, the coaching staff has no clue if any of these guys are ready or even capable of being winning quarterbacks in the SEC. My money is on the latter.
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