Hugh Freeze Vows to Change Rushing Attack Amidst Offensive Struggles

The Auburn Tigers are coming off a 52-yard rushing performance at Texas A&M last Saturday, and head coach Hugh Freeze has caught considerable slack from fans this week regarding the unwillingness to run the football in College Station.

Freeze spoke on the issue in the SEC’s weekly teleconference meeting on Wednesday afternoon, and his remarks sounded rather familiar to previous weeks and years.

“We've got to commit to running the football again, more so, and trying to, even if it's a two-yard gain or a three-yard dirty run, that just keeps us ahead of the chains,” Freeze said. “But you also want to be balanced, and so it's a very fine line.”

The third-year head coach continues to claim that Auburn needs to run the football and attack on the ground more, but he never exactly fulfills it.

After the Tigers’ 24-17 loss to Oklahoma, Freeze once again said in his postgame press conference that his squad should’ve utilized the running game more. So, that had to mean Auburn would make changes and simply run the football at a greater volume at Texas A&M, right?

Wrong.

Auburn’s top two running backs compiled just eight carries over the entire 60 minutes, with the SEC’s fifth-leading rusher, Jeremiah Cobb, only recording six carries for 28 yards. Senior Damari Alston totaled two carries for 10 yards, meaning the Tigers’ duo averaged nearly 4.8 yards per carry.

For reference, Cobb and Alston tallied about 4.9 yards per attempt combined in Auburn’s season-opening victory at Baylor – a much larger sample size, but it produced similar results. The Tigers won solely due to the rushing attack. And for some reason, Freeze consistently strays away from what is successful.

Neither running back touched the football in the first quarter, as Freeze called zero handoffs in the first opening period of action. The first called run came three minutes into the second quarter, which means Auburn didn’t run the football until 18 minutes into the game.

Many Auburn fans are trying to figure out what the issue is and why Freeze is reluctant to do what is proven to win games.

Is it stubbornness? Does Freeze have some sort of internal conflict due to the way he ultimately wishes to operate an offense? Is he trying to fulfill promises and appease Auburn’s elite core of wide receivers?

It’s likely a mixture of everything. After the Tigers rushed for 307 yards in Waco, lifting them to a 38-24 win over the Bears in Week 1, Freeze said he had to “swallow his pride” in terms of taking what the defense is giving to them and running the football – even if that means throwing it less.

This isn’t exactly a new issue, though, as fans saw a similar trend last season with Jarquez Hunter. The former first-team All-SEC running back racked up 278 yards and two touchdowns on 23 carries to lift Auburn to its first conference win of the season at Kentucky.

A week later, Hunter only received 12 carries for 50 yards in the Tigers’ 17-7 loss to Vanderbilt on their home turf. It simply does not make sense.

Auburn’s core foundation of the program is built on running the football. Bo Jackson, Ronnie Brown, and Cadillac Williams are just a few cornerstones of the Tigers’ historic identity. Run the football effectively, and one will find success on the Plains. That’s how it’s always been and how it will continue to be.

If Auburn does not make the proper changes and game-planning adjustments during the bye week heading into the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, Freeze will find himself in a deep hole – not so much if the Tigers lose, but more so if the offense looks as disastrous as it did against the Aggies.

And that all starts with utilizing Cobb, Alston, and the entire run game more. Prioritizing the ground attack has worked in previous years, and it has proven to be successful this season. Freeze needs to “swallow his pride” a little more in the coming weeks, because if he doesn’t, he could very well find himself out of a job in the near future.