Nick Saban reveals what makes Hugh Freeze, Jarquez Hunter difficult to prepare for

The Iron Bowl, on paper, is Alabama‘s to lose this weekend — especially after Auburn was blown out by New Mexico State home last week.

Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban is still giving his cross-state rivals credit where credit is due, however. Auburn is bowl eligible and has three SEC wins under its belt heading into the regular season finale, and Saban believes Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze has done a solid job during his first year at Auburn.

“He is, to me, one of the best offensive coaches in the country in terms of taking the personnel and the players he has and doing what he needs to do to help them be successful,” Saban said on Wednesday. “They present a lot of multiples that give you problems to try and stay gap sound against the run and they’ve done a good job all year with it.

“Our players are going to have to be zeroed in on making the adjustments that we need to make and I’m sure we’ll probably see something different in the game than what we practiced, so I think Hugh’s one of the best, most difficult preparations that we have when we play against his offenses.” 

On top of Freeze’s schemes, one of Auburn’s personnel in particular has stood out to Saban above the rest as he continues to evaluate film — running back Jarquez Hunter.

Hunter, a junior out of Philadelphia, has taken 132 carries for 772 yards and seven touchdowns while averaging 5.8 yards per carry this season. After his last performance, he surpassed the 2,000-yard mark for his career — and he still has two more seasons of eligibility to return to school after this season if he so chooses.

“It’s a little bit of what I just said about staying in the right places and adjusting correctly to the formations and motions and adjustments and unbalanced and all that kind of stuff,” Saban said of Hunter. “But this guy runs hard, he’s physical, he’s hard to tackle.

“Good tackling is really important in playing good defense anytime so being gap sound, everybody doing their job and playing disciplined, responsible football and doing a good job of tackling. But (also) getting more than one guy to the ball so we can clean up the tackles and not let this guy get yards after contact.” 

Saban will look over his game plan over turkey on Thursday, and expects his team to execute it on Saturday when the lights are on bright for this year’s edition of the Iron Bowl. Openning kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET live on CBS, and are heavy 14-point favorites heading into the weekend.