Freeze on who will call plays this year

[Viper 3,457]

23 hours ago, TeamZero77 said:

a few cases they had to burn a timeout due to swapping QB's. Square peg, round hole.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,992]

On 7/18/2024 at 3:02 PM, TeamZero77 said:

Sarkisian, Josh Heupel, Eli Drinkwitz, Kalen DeBoer, Lane Kiffin, Mike Leach did as well.

Josh Heupel took over a terrible situation at Tennessee but has had a winning record all 3 years, recruits top 10 or 12 and calls all his own plays. And he landed a top QB recruit that will start this year. All those coaches do it but time and time Hugh has said it's nearly impossible. Maybe Hugh struggles with handling stress compared to others, I don't know. He looks completely worn out and several people are mentioning that. This job damn sure isn't Liberty.

TBF, I do think Heupel is the only one who had similar stressors to Freeze. In terms of managing an all time great program, having to rebuild them from dirt, having to recruit at a high level, etc. He's the only one from that list that combines all of the different factors that I think Auburn would also ask of a coach. 

You can contend that Ole Miss's generally piss poor HS recruiting and reliance on the TP is a trade-off their head coach makes to be so schematically focused. I'm pretty sure Grubbs is actually the play caller for DeBoer. Leach...cmon lol. 

[IronMan70 3,321]

I don't know what kind of play calling  system Freeze will end up with to make his offense go but I do have confidence he will make it work. However, as some of the responses in the thread show, there is a lesson here for coaches to not explain how the sausage is made.  

[aucanucktiger 1,857]

This is one of the truly all time unbelievable quotes by a football head coach at any level - that he couldn't get involved in play calling because he "didnt understand" the terminology used between his starting QB and his OC.

Nobody's a bigger Hugh Freeze than me but that's just mailing in the 2023 season.

[TigerOne 1,187]

3 hours ago, aucanucktiger said:

This is one of the truly all time unbelievable quotes by a football head coach at any level - that he couldn't get involved in play calling because he "didnt understand" the terminology used between his starting QB and his OC.

Nobody's a bigger Hugh Freeze than me but that's just mailing in the 2023 season.

Freeze may be a bigger con man than Harsin. No excuses Hugh, get your ass  in gear and win or look elsewhere. At this point we can assume he knows what he’s doing , it won’t take long to find out.

Edited July 20 by TigerOne

[au701948 1,046]

21 minutes ago, TigerOne said:

Freeze may be a bigger con man than Harsin. No excuses Hugh, get your ass  in gear and win or look elsewhere. At this point we can assume he knows what he’s doing , it won’t take long to find out.

Amen to that.

[JuscAUse! 1,630]

4 hours ago, aucanucktiger said:

This is one of the truly all time unbelievable quotes by a football head coach at any level - that he couldn't get involved in play calling because he "didnt understand" the terminology used between his starting QB and his OC.

Nobody's a bigger Hugh Freeze than me but that's just mailing in the 2023 season.

No he did not mail it in. He actually explained to people that he had no idea how short of talent we were when he got here. So he hired, on very short notice, an OC and DC who had great reputations to do what he normally did as HC  because he, rightly, assessed that he was the best recruiter in the building. And we were screwed last year anyway. Cubelic and others that I believe know as much as anyone say that 7-8 wins this year is the ceiling. I hope they're wrong. But the man aged 10 years to get something close to SEC talent to AU. He may or may not be a great coach, even a good coach. But whoever follows him won't have to deal with the mess Harsin left him. 

 

[TeamZero77 1,908]

10 hours ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

TBF, I do think Heupel is the only one who had similar stressors to Freeze. In terms of managing an all time great program, having to rebuild them from dirt, having to recruit at a high level, etc. He's the only one from that list that combines all of the different factors that I think Auburn would also ask of a coach. 

You can contend that Ole Miss's generally piss poor HS recruiting and reliance on the TP is a trade-off their head coach makes to be so schematically focused. I'm pretty sure Grubbs is actually the play caller for DeBoer. Leach...cmon lol. 

That's my bad, I thought DeBoer called his own plays at Washington. I was just saying that Mike Leach called his own plays as well. I know he passed away but he was calling his own plays everywhere he coached until he passed away in 2022. He was juggling recruiting, gameplan, play calling and everything else that goes with being a HC in the SEC. And he got Mississippi State to a 9-4 record doing it. 

I listened to Payton Thorne take questions thursday at Media Days and he said they've had to learn a new offense this year and new terminology. He didn't mention anything about Freeze calling plays but he did say that Freeze will be with the offense alot more this year as compared to last year. That should help our offense a ton this season. 

[GreenTiger 1,047]

I’m definitely concerned we will see similar offensive confusion and poor preparation as we did last year. “Going with the hot hand” doesn’t inspire confidence 

[aucom96 1,648]

On 7/18/2024 at 4:20 PM, TeamZero77 said:

Yep. A big reason we hired Hugh was his playcalling success. Mainly his redzone playcalling. He has taken a CEO approach, similar to Saban or Brian Kelly, since he got here though.

He's taken a blame everyone else approach, mostly. The guy was brought in to recruit and improve the offense. So far, he's managed half of that and shrugged off the other. 

[AU9377 5,922]

On 7/18/2024 at 4:02 PM, TeamZero77 said:

Sarkisian, Josh Heupel, Eli Drinkwitz, Kalen DeBoer, Lane Kiffin, Mike Leach did as well.

Josh Heupel took over a terrible situation at Tennessee but has had a winning record all 3 years, recruits top 10 or 12 and calls all his own plays. And he landed a top QB recruit that will start this year. All those coaches do it but time and time Hugh has said it's nearly impossible. Maybe Hugh struggles with handling stress compared to others, I don't know. He looks completely worn out and several people are mentioning that. This job damn sure isn't Liberty.

It isn't Liberty.  In fact, he has more tools to work with at Auburn than he had at Liberty.  Hugh did great things at Ole Miss and Liberty.  He knows what he is doing and I believe he will find what works for him at Auburn sooner rather than later.

[AU9377 5,922]

19 hours ago, Viper said:

Compared to the years since, most of those Gus years look pretty damn good today.

[aucanucktiger 1,857]

12 hours ago, JuscAUse! said:

No he did not mail it in. He actually explained to people that he had no idea how short of talent we were when he got here. So he hired, on very short notice, an OC and DC who had great reputations to do what he normally did as HC  because he, rightly, assessed that he was the best recruiter in the building. And we were screwed last year anyway. Cubelic and others that I believe know as much as anyone say that 7-8 wins this year is the ceiling. I hope they're wrong. But the man aged 10 years to get something close to SEC talent to AU. He may or may not be a great coach, even a good coach. But whoever follows him won't have to deal with the mess Harsin left him. 

 

So exactly how long would it have taken him to "learn" the terminology he admits he never learned?

Nice try. 

[JuscAUse! 1,630]

1 hour ago, aucanucktiger said:

So exactly how long would it have taken him to "learn" the terminology he admits he never learned?

Nice try. 

My Dad used to say there are 3 super easy jobs in the State of Alabama. Being the Governor, being the HC at AU, and being a winning NASCAR driver. He knew that because every man in the state could do it better.

I probably err in my support for whoever the current coach is, but I'm a fan and I see the glass as half full.

Harsin is one I gave up on quick,  in my defense. 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,992]

10 hours ago, TeamZero77 said:

That's my bad, I thought DeBoer called his own plays at Washington. I was just saying that Mike Leach called his own plays as well. I know he passed away but he was calling his own plays everywhere he coached until he passed away in 2022. He was juggling recruiting, gameplan, play calling and everything else that goes with being a HC in the SEC. And he got Mississippi State to a 9-4 record doing it. 

I listened to Payton Thorne take questions thursday at Media Days and he said they've had to learn a new offense this year and new terminology. He didn't mention anything about Freeze calling plays but he did say that Freeze will be with the offense alot more this year as compared to last year. That should help our offense a ton this season. 

The lol part for Mike is that he didn’t really give a damn about recruiting (no offense to him) and he was as blase about defense as you could get up until Zach Arnett really did his thing. I also don’t think he really adjusted his offensive philosophy to roster construction particularly often. 
 

He was a genius but I can absolutely guarantee you if we had Leach, Auburn fans would want him almost as quick than Harsin. Like I said in the first post, there’s virtually no guys on this level that have tried to excel in as many avenues as Freeze has attempted AND have called plays

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,992]

3 hours ago, AU9377 said:

Compared to the years since, most of those Gus years look pretty damn good today.

Even though Gus never really figured out the CEO-play caller balance, I did think he figured out how the “give me assistant coaches that can operate well with autonomy” aspect. Unfortunately, many of the offensive coaches still were meddled with as I understand, but I like to think that’s why the floor was always at least respectable for us with him. 
 

I think the quality of assistants, and maybe more specifically coordinators, has been very lacking since 2020. I mean Gus had Lindsey, Lashlee and Dilly. The worst coach out of that 3 is probably more valued than any OC in 21-23 (Derrick Nix probably clears Lindsey though). 

[Viper 3,457]

6 hours ago, AU9377 said:

Compared to the years since, most of those Gus years look pretty damn good today.

They do. Thanks to Gus, then exponentially with Harsin, our cupboard was left near-Vandy level bare. I noted this in Nov 21.

[AU9377 5,922]

5 hours ago, JuscAUse! said:

My Dad used to say there are 3 super easy jobs in the State of Alabama. Being the Governor, being the HC at AU, and being a winning NASCAR driver. He knew that because every man in the state could do it better.

I probably err in my support for whoever the current coach is, but I'm a fan and I see the glass as half full.

Harsin is one I gave up on quick,  in my defense. 

That is more because he was an A-hole than anything else.  First time I met Harsin, I told everyone I was with that the attitude may work in some places, but it won't at Auburn.

[JerryAU 1,822]

On 7/18/2024 at 2:55 PM, Auburn93 said:

The ISSUE has been playing in the SEC with a limited roster, not play calling. 

I'm late to this thread, but I had to chime on this statement.

Play calling has been a huge ISSUE at Auburn for a long, long time and it's been an issue under numerous HC's and OC's.  Mix that in with various seasons with sub-SEC talent and we have a program that has struggled for a solid decade and sadly has a W/L record down there with Vanderbilt.  

 

[Tiger 8,853]

This sounds like it's basically the whirlybird of playcalling