Hugh Freeze talks Auburn quarterbacks and the transfer portal
Last night, at a Huntsville Ambush Alumni event, Hugh Freeze decided to step out and answer questions about his quarterbacks. In his usually outgoing and straightforward manner, Freeze was blatantly honest about where the program is.
“I get excited about Holden Geriner and Robby Ashford and TJ Finley and Hank Brown who is coming in. Does that mean we won’t continue to look? Truthfully, I haven’t seen one yet that I thought was ‘bam,’ that’s a no-brainer and ahead of the ones we have, I know some may not want to hear that because they think an instant fix. I get the tweets, trust me. Every time a quarterback goes into the portal, ‘there he is, there he is,’ and then I watch the film and that’s really not the one I’m looking for.”
Freeze made sure he reiterated his stance on Auburn continuing to search:
“There could be one that goes in tomorrow or the next day that all right, this one makes sense. That’s as clear as I can put it, I think,”
Freeze did not follow the same prediction path as Trevon Reed did earlier in the day which was broken by Auburn Daily here. Instead, he indicated that there were no favorites at the moment and that he could see the quarterback competition lingering past fall camp and into the regular season.
“Truthfully, I see us playing a few of them early in the season, I truthfully don’t think you ever have the greatest judge in practice. “I didn’t know (Liberty quarterback) Malik Willis was going to be what he was until we started playing games,” Coach Freeze continued “And I said, ‘OK, we’ve got something.’ (Ole Miss quarterback) Bo Wallace was the worst practice quarterback that I ever had at Ole Miss, and the guy turned (out to be) may be the most important recruit I had in the first year. He takes us to a bowl game in Year One and beats Alabama. So, I’m not sure that, in our current state if it remains the way it is, that we don’t have some game reps for several of them to kind of see.”
Auburn’s head football coach's words have been as consistent as the sun since he arrived on campus. It would appear, at this point, that there is no front-runner for the quarterback position.
As of yet, no quarterback has left via the transfer portal, and none is coming in. The quarterback room at Auburn is exactly the same as it was after A-day when Freeze was asked the same question then.
“We are open to any position that’ll help us improve our team, as long as they fit within the culture, that includes the quarterback room. … Do I think we can win some games with what we have? Yes. I do. But, you know, I don’t want to ever be put in a box where I say something and I do the opposite. I don’t know the answer. I don’t know if we are. I know that I would be open to it.”
As the old adage goes, when you have two quarterbacks you really have none. So, if you have four quarterbacks, you really are in the deep grass. There is plenty of time left for Auburn to find a quality starter in the portal or with a grad transfer after the semester ends. Either way, it appears Freeze is prepared to try all options until he finds one that works. No matter how long it takes.
The Tigers have now had six players depart from the program within the last couple of weeks, including three backup linebackers:
Wide Receiver Tar'Varish Dawson
Defensive lineman Jeffrey M'ba
Defensive lineman Tobechi Okoli
Linebacker Kameron Brown
Linebacker Desmond Tisdol
Linebacker Powell Gordon
Auburn has pulled in an impressive haul thus far during Hugh Freeze's first season on the Plains, currently sitting at No. 3 nationally in 247Sports' transfer portal class rankings.
You can check out our transfer portal tracker here. Stay up to date on all of the Tigers' commitments, departures, and prospects for key positions at auburndaily.com.
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