Hugh Freeze is at fault for Auburn's quarterback situation

After Auburn’s 24-14 loss to Arkansas at home Saturday, a game in which Tigers quarterbacks combined for four interceptions, head coach Hugh Freeze was dumbfounded. 

So what did he do? He pointed fingers and threw his players under the bus. 

“I know there’s people open and I know that we’re running the football,” an aggravated Freeze said after the game. “We’ve got to find a guy who won’t throw it to the other team.”

Remind me: Whose job is it to find those players? 

Freeze has a right to be frustrated. Auburn had opportunities to beat Arkansas on Saturday, but the Tigers came up short in large part because of the terrible turnovers. And this isn’t the first Saturday in which Auburn suffered from inconsistent — er, bad — quarterback play. This isn’t the first year, either.

But nobody feels sorry for you, Hugh. This quarterback issue didn’t just fall out of the sky. It has been quite evident for a while now.

His comments after the game were especially egregious given Freeze said in May he couldn’t bring himself to spend $1 million on a quarterback. Maybe there wasn’t a quarterback he viewed as worthy of that money. There weren’t a ton of obvious, no-doubt-about it options in the portal. There was Riley Leonard, D.J. Uiagalelei, Cam Ward and others. Some of those guys, like Ward, are playing better than others. 

But you’d think Freeze would have spent the money on someone, right? You’d think he’d even over-spend to improve the room because someone new had to be better than this. 

No. He doubled down on the same personnel he blamed Saturday. 

“I believe in our quarterback room,” Freeze said in May on Greg McElroy and Cole Cubelic’s radio show at the Regions Tradition in Birmingham. “I believe in Kent Austin. I believe that if you have the right pieces around Payton (Thorne), that we can have success. I think you saw some glimpses of that. I don’t think we had a really total package around him.” 

Again, Freeze made this decision. 

Despite the fact the entire country could see Thorne wasn’t going to go out and win a Heisman Trophy this season, Freeze stuck by him. We weren’t as certain about Hank Brown, but it’s Freeze’s job to know who he has on his roster and what their ceiling is. Brown is still fairly young and his story isn’t finished being written, but here’s what’s abundantly clear: Thorne isn’t good enough for Auburn to win the way it expects to win and Brown isn’t ready.

Against Arkansas, Brown, a former three-star prospect out of Nashville in the 2023 class, threw three first-half interceptions. There was one interception he threw into the end zone where he double-clutched the ball and threw it to the defense.

“It was miserable to watch,” Freeze said of the first half.

In the beginning in the second half, Freeze went back to Thorne, who he benched after a loss to Cal two weeks ago. Thorne performed better than Brown, throwing two touchdowns, but the duo’s four interceptions just aren’t going to win very many SEC games. 

“Obviously, we’re not coaching it well enough and have to find young men that will do it the way they’re coached,” Freeze.

Auburn fans are listening. It’s heartbreaking having to hear Thorne explain that his advice to Brown is to stay off of his phone for a while. Tigers fans are antsy. Freeze threw gasoline on that rage fire.

The frustrating thing about this entire scenario is that Freeze understands as well as anyone how an elite roster is supposed to look in the SEC. Auburn’s former coach, Bryan Harsin, didn’t. Harsin thought he’d out-evaluate coaches like Nick Saban and Kirby Smart, all but torpedoing the Tigers’ talent level in the process. 

Freeze didn’t have an easy mess to clean up. And he has done an admirable job in recruiting, putting Auburn in position with recruits Harsin didn’t even attempt to court. Freeze landed five-star wide receiver Cam Coleman in the 2024 recruiting cycle and landed transfer KeAndre Lambert-Smith (who had 156 yards receiving against the Razorbacks) despite not addressing the quarterback issues.

He has done some really good things in overhauling this roster. But for some reason, he’s had a blind spot about his quarterbacks room. 

So while Saturday and the Cal loss were frustrating, Freeze only has himself to blame.