A 2024 goal for Hugh Freeze with Auburn football? Get back to putting the ball in the air
AUBURN — Auburn football's offense was a liability in 2023.
There's no sugarcoating it. The lone bright spot came on the ground — the Tigers rushed for 189 yards per game, which was top 25 nationally — but the aerial attack was horrendous. There were six games in coach Hugh Freeze's first season in which Auburn didn't have a quarterback exceed 105 passing yards, and the average of 162.2 passing yards was last in the SEC.
Mississippi State posted a second-to-last mark of 181.8, nearly 20 yards better than the Tigers.
The paltry numbers saw Freeze move on from offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery in January, and he hired longtime Ole Miss assistant Derrick Nix to replace him.
Freeze, who worked with Nix with the Rebels from 2012-16, wants to get back to a run-pass ratio more in line with what he's done in the past. He hopes that change can remedy the through-the-air woes.
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"Ideally, when we've been very good, it's been that 55% run to 45% pass," Freeze said March 19. "If you had had that ideal percentage, I think it means you're pretty effective. ... If you're running it really, really well, then it may be more 60/40, but you've got to be able to do both and stay balanced."
The Tigers ran 818 offensive plays last season, according to College Football Reference, and 317 of those snaps ended with a pass. That's a rate of 38.8%. That figure, however, does not take into account the 37 plays that resulted in sacks.
"I do think that if we can be consistent in our RPO game, that it really opens us to be more effective in the passing game," Freeze said. "Because you're not always having to drop-back protect. I just don't think that's a great recipe in this league if you're having to call a bunch of drop-back protections. Usually that other side is a little more athletic and can figure out a way to outnumber you.
"So, that's the key to me to staying balance, is us being able to run the ball and throwing the ball off of run-actions, where you're not having to vertical pass it a whole lot. That's hopefully what our identity will be."
Freeze coached 10 seasons before he got the Auburn job ahead of the 2023 campaign. His leading quarterback each year averaged more than 3,000 passing yards. Auburn has only had a 3,000-yard passer twice in program history; Dameyune Craig posted 3,277 in 1997 and Jarrett Stidham logged 3,158 in 2017.
Payton Thorne, who is the favorite to win the QB job for 2024, had 1,755 passing yards last season.
"I want to get it back to where it’s been everywhere I’ve been," Freeze said. "I would love to see us, at the end of the year, have 3,000 yards passing or more. We can get there.
"We’ve got to get those receivers right, but we can get there."
Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn football needs a new offensive identity. Hugh Freeze knows it
