Lane Kiffin's Advice to Hugh Freeze After Auburn's Offensive Struggles

Auburn's offense has struggled mightily in SEC play.

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze has lost his last five SEC games, including four straight this season. | Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin revealed Monday that he contacted Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze after the loss to Oklahoma, recommending that Auburn should change their offensive play calling signals due to the Sooners “knowing” what play calls are coming.

“It seems like, you know, they’ve got a really good beat on the (offensive) plays when they are called,” Kiffin, whose Rebels face Oklahoma this week, said. “They do a great job of taking those away. You look at the Auburn game, I mean, I told Hugh after the game watching it, you might want to switch your signals. It looks like they have the plays, the middle safety is running down to steal slants, which is very abnormal.”

If true, there is no doubt that Auburn needs to change things up. Additionally, in 2024 the NCAA approved helmet communication between coaches and select players on the field during FBS games. Auburn has utilized this. However, they often revert to classic playcalling, where they give signals from the sideline. 

This mishap could easily be avoided (if true) by utilizing a tool that the NCAA granted teams. The Tigers run a mixture of both huddling and calling plays from the sideline using signals, with coaches wearing different color shirts than anyone else on the sideline so they can be easily identified. Using the quarterback helmet microphone to call plays to quarterback Jackson Arnold more often, rather than using sideline signals, could be something the Tigers could look into. 

The Auburn offense has significantly underperformed since starting SEC play. The Tigers have yet to score 20 points in a conference game this season. The most points Auburn has scored this season in an SEC contest this season is 17, which was against Oklahoma and against the Missouri Tigers last weekend. 

The offensive struggles can be pointed to many things, but there is no doubt that the offensive playcalling is one of the main problems. If what Lane Kiffin’s suggested is true, it could somewhat explain why the Auburn offense has struggled during conference play. The Auburn offense tends to line up in similar formations throughout games and do not really change it up often. Making it easy for defenses to catch on to what they are doing regardless of if they are using Auburn’s signs or not. 

Auburn has many things it needs to work out in its offense, and perhaps signal-calling from the sideline could be a small thing that Auburn could minimize to start getting a spark on offense after its opening drive of the game.