Hugh Freeze Ponders 'Making Some Changes' After Auburn's Anemic Effort

The Auburn Tigers' head coach is fed up with his team's showing on offense after another weak performance in a winnable game

Freeze knows it comes down to coaching for Auburn | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

The Auburn Tigers suffered their second consecutive loss on Saturday at the hands of Texas A&M, 16-10. For the second consecutive week, the Auburn offensive line looked outmatched. 

After surrendering nine sacks to Oklahoma and committing eight penalties, the unit followed it up with five sacks allowed and five penalties against the Aggies. Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze addressed the play of the group after the loss to Texas A&M.

"Man, I know I sound like a broken record. It's unacceptable,” Freeze said. “We have too good of skill players and quarterbacks and running backs. I think we're solid at OL, too. But we certainly aren't playing like it. So that falls on me and the staff to figure out why."

Through most of the offseason, the new-look line was heralded as one of the best in the conference by Freeze and the coaching staff. However, the group’s recent struggles have suggested anything but, something that has left the Auburn faithful feeling nearly as lost for answers as Freeze.

"Like I said, I'm at a point that I can't put it on them,” Freeze said. “It's gotta be on us. We either have to go evaluate the personnel and make changes, or figure out how to coach it better."

The salt in the wound for Auburn is that the linemen struggling the most have been prized portal acquisition Xavier Chaplin. The former Virginia Tech standout had committed six penalties in the last two games, by far the most of any Auburn Tiger. 

In Chaplin’s defense, he spent most of that time dealing with players such as Oklahoma’s R Mason Thomas and Texas A&M’s Cashius Howell. However, the Tigers need their top portal player to make fewer mistakes moving forward.

Thankfully for Auburn, the Tigers have a bye week before hosting the Georgia Bulldogs, who fell to the Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday night. The loss snapped the Bulldogs’ 33-game home winning streak. Auburn is going to have some things to think about over the off week to prepare, something that the coaching staff has readily admitted.

"We have two weeks to prepare for Georgia, and we're going to reevaluate everything on our offense,” Freeze said. “And it's not on Jackson [Arnold] or any other player. It's on our staff, and that starts with me to fix it."

A fix needs to be found quickly, because without it, Auburn could be staring down the barrel of its third consecutive 0-3 start in SEC play under Freeze. And, at that point, it won’t be long until the Auburn faithful start asking some hard questions about the ability of the current staff to turn things around on The Plains.