Hugh Freeze says there will be 'no philosophy change' on offense

Auburn's offense has not been particularly efficient out of the gate this season.

The Tigers continue to rotate quarterbacks, struggle in pass blocking, and just don't seem to have much of an identity overall.

Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze was asked about the offensive adjustments during the bye week, and whether or not there was any sort of philosophy change for Philip Montgomery and that side of the ball.

"No philosophy change, other than maybe making sure we're running the right RPOs with the runs, and doing more of that," Freeze said.

If there's not going to be any major changes to the offense, what are the Tigers working on?

"Well you do all of the self scouting, to find out what your tendencies are, and to make sure you have those posted when you're game planning this week. If all we've done when we've motioned the tight end across the ball is XYZ, you probably don't need to be doing XYZ this week," Freeze continued. "We're trying to make sure our identity particularly in the passing game matches our personnel, and whatever we feel strongly about in that then lets do it over and over and over and over and over again until we are really really confident and really really good at that."

Auburn has really struggled to push the ball downfield this season. The Tigers ranked 105th nationally in yards per pass attempt (6.5), also ninth-worst among Power Five competition.

They've also struggled to air the ball out period. 156.2 passing yards per game is good for 122nd nationally. If Auburn finishes 2023 without any change, this would be the Tigers' worst passing attack since the 2012 and 2011 seasons (156.6 and 155.5 YPG).

There may not be time for a philosophy change this season, considering how far the Tigers are into it, but putting more emphasis on what the offense is good at without creating obvious tendencies would be excellent. Something has got to give with Payton Thorne, and the staff continues to emphasize that when things go poorly, it isn't Thorne's fault. It's the coaching staff's fault.

"Payton would have got it right if we had given him the right toolbox... we've got to give him his tools," Freeze said when asked about identifying protections against Georgia.

When is it going to change?

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