2/11/23 Auburn Articles

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Cadillac Williams 'ecstatic' to coach USF transfer Brian Battie

Nathan King

5–6 minutes

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Philip Montgomery had already directly led to Auburn landing a big-time transfer, when his former starting left tackle at Tulsa, Dillon Wade, committed to the Tigers early in the transfer cycle.

Then he planted the seeds for Cadillac Williams to pick up an important depth piece in Auburn’s running backs room.

Auburn’s new offensive coordinator had mentioned to Williams, at some point in December, that his Tulsa team faced a tremendous tailback at USF in 2022. That player was Brian Battie, who went for 169 yards and a touchdown in the penultimate game of Montgomery’s tenure at Tulsa.

Then Battie jumped in the portal Jan. 6. Williams worked some of his connections in the Tampa area and got the senior running back on the Plains for a visit two days later. The next day, Battie was a Tiger.

“To see an All-American guy — a guy who put up the production that he has put up, to be in the portal, and for us with Tank (Bigsby) leaving, for us, it was a need for us,” Williams said last week. “To have a guy like him jump in there, I was ecstatic. So, got an opportunity to cut on his film, and his film speaks for itself. I got an opportunity to talk to him, and I tell you, he’s an awesome young man that has a bright future.”

As Williams referenced, Battie was a first team All-American on special teams in 2021, after he led the nation with three kick-return touchdowns. In the backfield, he was a 1,000-yard rusher this past season, racking up 1,186 yards and eight touchdowns.

At just under 15 carries per game, Battie finished with the No. 21 yards-per-carry clip in the country (6.74 yards).

“I mean, he’s a guy who rushed for over 1,000 yards last year,” Williams said. “He was a dangerous kickoff returner. Now, his whole thing is he gets to come here and have an opportunity to define his role and play big-boy ball.”

Auburn is obviously set to replace Bigbsy, who finished as the program’s No. 7 all-time rusher after three seasons on the Plains. Waiting patiently as Bigsby’s backup the past two years has been Jarquez Hunter, who’s shown all the traits of being a lead back in the SEC, most recently with 668 yards and seven touchdowns as a sophomore.

While the Tigers have a couple young, talented pieces in the room — namely redshirt freshman Damari Alston and incoming freshman Jeremiah Cobb — an experienced transfer pickup helps to alleviate some pressure for them to be immediately ready to contribute at a high level in the SEC.

Auburn’s backfield won’t be as big, but it should be nimbler and faster with the addition of Battie, who was listed at 5-foot-8 and 165 pounds at USF. Hunter has power but is more of a horizontal runner than Bigsby.

“First of all, the speed, the explosiveness — but I love the fact that the first guy, he either made him miss or broke the tackle,” Williams said of Battie. “The first guy is never going to bring him down or tackle him. Also, he’s a smaller guy, but he’s a natural runner between the tackles. He’s a running back. He’s a football player. He’s a guy that understands leverage and angles, a guy that’s going to break tackles — and he’s strong.”

Battie’s showing against Tulsa at the end of the season was his best performance of the year. His second-best was in September at Florida, when he knifed through an SEC defense for 150 yards, 8.8 yards per carry and a touchdown, as USF nearly pulled the upset in a 31-28 loss.

“That’s right,” Williams said of Battie’s impressive showing against SEC competition. “If you turn on the Florida game and you watch him run the football … he’s a guy that you can run between the tackles. He’s a guy that understands leverage and angles. He’s a guy that’s going to break tackles, as small as he is.”

Like Hunter, Battie adds a pass-catching element out of the backfield, too. With 14 catches last season, he and Hunter combined for 31 receptions and 335 yards through the air. Per Pro Football Focus, USF put Battie out at slot receiver an average of 4.2 snaps per game.

“To me, that takes our offense to a different level because now you can have a guy like that, put him in the slot and then bring him out the backfield,” Williams said. “Now he’s matched up on guys he’s more athletic than that he should win when we get the ball to him out in space. So, if we can add that component to him catching the ball out of the backfield, doing things like that, he becomes even more valuable.”

Speaking of PFF, Battie finished the year as the No. 7 highest-graded running back at the Group of Five level.

“He’s very competitive, and he wants to be one of the best,” Williams said. “We're getting a complete back that I think can do it all.”

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Five expectations for Auburn football's quarterbacks under Hugh Freeze

Lance Dawe

5–6 minutes

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Here are five things we can expect out of Hugh Freeze's quarterbacks at Auburn.

In this story:

Auburn Tigers

New Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze is known as a bit of a quarterback guru.

Now entering his first season on the Plains, Freeze will have that reputation put to the test.

Auburn quarterback Robby Ashford was thrown into the fire as a freshman and unsurprisingly struggled in a variety of areas - accuracy, decision making, turnovers, etc. However, he did flash glimpses of potential, rushing for over 700 yards and finished sixth in the SEC in yards per completion (min. 100 attempts).

Unless Freeze decides to roll with a quarterback out of the portal, he's going to have the chance to build on Ashford's foundation and unlock his potential.

Regardless of who the signal-caller is, here are five things we can expect out of Freeze's quarterbacks at Auburn.

More gambling

Jason Homan/ Auburn Daily

Over the course of his ten seasons coaching Division I college football, Hugh Freeze quarterbacks throw an interception on 2.9% of their passes. Compare this to Auburn, who from 2013-2022 threw a pick on 2.1% of their passes.

The gap between these two styles of play starts to shift when you look at interception totals - Hugh Freeze QB's 117 interceptions to Auburn's 65 - but that's not a fair comparison because of two reasons. One, the Tigers have thrown the ball significantly less than the average SEC team over the last decade. Two, there's a two-year gap in the Hugh Freeze numbers because he was out of coaching.

Only twice has Auburn eclipsed double-digit interceptions since 2013. Hugh Freeze quarterbacks have done it seven out of his nine seasons.

More turnovers come with throwing the ball more. Especially in Freeze's offenses.

More explosive play

Matt Bush-USA TODAY Sports

While turnovers may be a downside, more explosive play is also to be expected from Freeze signal-callers.

During his time at Ole Miss, Freeze never had a passing offense finish outside of the top five in the SEC in yards per game and only had one aerial attack step outside the top five of the league in yards per attempt.

If we're looking at this year specifically, there's reason to expect Auburn's receiver room to be used pretty differently considering the blend of size and speed the Tigers have in the rotation. Physical, big-bodied receivers are what have thrived in Freeze's systems in the past - and part of it has to do with the downfield passing from his quarterback.

This isn't Joe Burrow and the 2019 LSU Tigers by any stretch. However, fans should be excited about a more, well, exciting passing game.

Better accuracy

Eric Starling/Auburn Daily

Seven of Freeze's ten offenses have seen better completion percentages than Auburn's passing attacks in the same year.

We won't sit here and tell you that every year Freeze beat out the Tigers' passing attack by a wide margin in that category, but it's not unfair to say Freeze's quarterbacks have had a consistent edge over Auburn's from a raw numbers perspective - more reps, completions, accuracy, etc.

If we're talking specifically about this upcoming season, there's little doubt that Ashford will improve on his 49.5% completion percentage.

Dual-threat abilities

Eric Starling/Auburn Daily

Freeze has utilized his quarterback's legs to not just produce yardage, but to actually get in the endzone.

His starting signal-callers have averaged 447.1 yards on the ground per season to go along with 7.5 rushing touchdowns.

What's interesting about Freeze's use of dual-threat quarterbacks is that the more he's used them in a given season, the better the team has done overall. Now, the utilization of a QBs legs may not directly correlate to wins, but it does indicate that the offense probably performs better and therefore the team as a whole is more competitive.

Four of Freeze's ten seasons have included his starting quarterback rushing for over 500 yards. Those teams went a combined 38-11 (0.78 win percentage) and produced all three of his ten-win seasons.

It does make one wonder what could be in store if Auburn were to ride with Robby Ashford and improve his passing game...

Big performances in big wins

Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

Excluding 2012, Hugh Freeze is 5-7 against top 10 opponents. In those five wins, his quarterbacks produced some solid (averaged) stat lines:

- 314.4 passing yards per game

- 10 total TD/2 INT

- 79.6 QBR

When the quarterback plays well in important contests, the team plays well.

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