Vanderbilt Game Proves Just How Bad Hugh Freeze-Led Auburn Offense Was

In its first game without Hugh Freeze, Auburn's offense made history despite a loss to Vanderbilt.

Hugh Freeze's biggest criticism while at Auburn was how he ran the Tigers' offense. | Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

The Auburn Tigers' offense was unleashed to its full potential for the first time since starting conference play against Vanderbilt despite a 45-38 loss in overtime.

Everyone was in sync, scoring points and playmakers getting the ball in their hands. Two questions arise from the situation: why has the Auburn offense been bottled up all season, and what led to them scoring the most offensive points that they have scored all season? 

Firstly, the initial obvious answer is not having Hugh Freeze near a play-calling sheet. Freeze had a big hand in the offensive play calling for the Tigers' offense. The system he initially had in place was flawed from the start. Freeze implemented a system where there were essentially three play callers from first to third down. 

“Derrick Nix is the offensive coordinator, and he does all of the planning and scripting, and is in charge of the game plan,” Freeze said in a post-practice interview during Auburn’s fall camp. “But man, there’s no staff without collaboration on the plan. Offensively or defensively, I reserve the right to say on the (play) call sheet, yeah, I don’t like that one right here.

“Kent (Austin) leads the third-down plan. But other than that, Nix leads the charge and has the playcalling duties, with me reserving the right to say- I’ll go over when we’re on defense to do head-coaching duties and do the same thing there… I don’t tell DJ (Durkin) a lot, but sometimes I can see what I think offenses are doing, and I’ll say, hey, we need to cloud this… but that's the way it will be this year.”

With Freeze having the final say so in the offensive playcalling, he is the one being held responsible for a horrible offensive scheme that does not result in a winning recipe. Whether or not the system was in place later in the season is up for debate, but Freeze was often seen with the play sheet and talking into his headset nearly every single offensive play for the Tigers. 

When Freeze decided to bench quarterback Jackson Arnold against Arkansas, the Auburn offense somewhat found a spark and started generating points, but not touchdowns. But the very next game for Auburn against Kentucky, Auburn was only able to score three points, with both Arnold and Ashton Daniels seeing the field, and neither of them being able to provide a spark for the Tigers’ offense.

The common denominator for both quarterbacks in that game was Freeze. 

In Auburn’s first game without Freeze, the Auburn offense has a 300-yard passer (Daniels), 100-yard rusher (Jeremiah Cobb), and two 100-yard receivers (Cam Coleman and Eric Singleton) for the first time since the 2004 SEC Championship game against the Tennessee Volunteers. 

The offensive playcaller for Auburn against Vanderbilt was offensive coordinator Derrick Nix, who obviously should have had the full set of keys to the Auburn offense, rather than a partial say-so. Nix was able to get the ball in the hands of his playmakers and even got the Tigers' offense out of holes when they were backed up on third and long. 

Things have changed with the Auburn offense, and it was clear what the problem has been. With Freeze out of the picture, the Auburn offense has two more chances to build momentum and possibly clinch a bowl game for the first time since 2021.