AUBURN — Auburn football's offense was a big question in 2023.
No sugar coating. The only bright spots appeared on the ground — the Tigers rushed for 189 yards per game, top 25 in the nation — but the aerial attack was formidable. In coach Hugh Freeze's first season, there were six games in which Auburn's quarterback did not have more than 105 passing yards, and his average passing yards of 162.2 was last in the SEC.
Mississippi State posted a penultimate 181.8, nearly 20 yards better than the Tigers.
Because of the meager numbers, Freese moved on from offensive coordinator Phillip Montgomery in January and hired longtime Ole Miss assistant Derrick Nix to replace him.
Freeze, who worked with the Knicks for the Rebels from 2012 to 2016, wants to get back to a run-pass rate closer to his past performance. He hopes the changes will solve the problems in the air.
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“When you're doing really well, ideally you're running 55% and passing 45%,” Freese said on March 19. “If you had that ideal percentage, I think it would mean you were pretty effective. … If you're running it really well, it might be 60/40 or more, but you can do both. We need to maintain balance.”
According to College Football Reference, the Tigers ran 818 offensive plays last season, and 317 of those snaps ended in passes. The percentage is 38.8%. However, this number does not take into account the 37 plays that resulted in sacks.
“I believe if we can be consistent in the RPO game, we can be more effective in the passing game,” Freese said. “Because you don't always have to play dropback protection. If you have to call a lot of dropback protection, I don't think that's a great recipe in this league. Usually the other side is a little bit more ” They are athletic and can find ways to outnumber you.
“So, for me, that's the key to staying balanced. It's whether we can run the ball and throw the ball off the run action. We don't have to do too many vertical passes there. Hopefully that will become our identity.'' “
Freese coached for 10 seasons before taking the Auburn job for the 2023 season. His signature quarterback averaged over 3,000 passing yards each year. Auburn has only had a 3,000-yard passer twice in program history. Dameyun Craig had 3,277 in 1997 and Jarrett Stidham had 3,158 in 2017.
Peyton Thorne, the top 2024 QB candidate, passed for 1,755 yards last season.
“I want to get back to where I was before,” Freeze said. “I'd like to see him pass for over 3,000 yards at the end of the year. We can get there.
“You have to get the receiver set up correctly, but you 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 at X (formerly Twitter name @rich_silva18).
