Bo Wallace said his son would never play for him. Arkansas football dunked on him on social media. Lane Kiffin fired off multiple not-so-subtle shots.
It’s not easy being Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze this week. The incoming attacks aren’t likely to stop soon, either, as a 2-2 Auburn team still has games against No. 2 Georgia, No. 4 Alabama, No. 11 Missouri, No. 21 Oklahoma and No. 24 Texas A&M to come this season. At this point, Auburn is not guaranteed to even make a bowl game, an abject disaster in what was supposed to be a leap forward in Freeze’s second year.
How did Freeze and Auburn get here? It all starts with the quarterback position, which has prompted so much conversation in the last seven days.
Even within the Auburn program, there wasn’t a consensus that Payton Thorne should be the guy.
After being hired from Liberty in December 2022, Freeze knew he needed to shop in the transfer portal for a new quarterback. The problem was he had little experience doing so and even had to reach out to multiple people in the personnel world asking for help navigating the transfer portal and name, image and likeness, telling them he didn’t have to deal with it while at Liberty, according to multiple sources. Freeze’s inexperience in that department — and inability, or more accurately, unwillingness to adapt — has come back to bite Auburn numerous times.
Auburn pursued multiple quarterbacks in that December transfer window, including North Carolina State QB Devin Leary and Coastal Carolina QB Grayson McCall, but didn’t land one. That put increased pressure on finding one in the spring, which typically isn’t as talent-rich a market.
Auburn strongly pursued Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, though he never entered the transfer portal, to the point his older brother, Tua, had to step in and stop it, according to Armen Keteyian and my reporting in the book “The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos.”
The Tigers also considered Notre Dame transfer Tyler Buchner, who ended up at Alabama, and Nebraska quarterback Casey Thompson, who landed at Florida Atlantic, before finally grabbing Thorne, the No. 43-ranked transfer QB, in early May. Thorne started 26 games at Michigan State, giving Auburn, on paper at least, a viable Power Five starting quarterback to compete with Robby Ashford for the position.
Still, even within the Auburn program, not everyone was on board with Thorne being a slam dunk option. There was concern that he was a different guy in 2022 than the previous season without running back Kenneth Walker and receiver Jalen Nailor. Freeze and offensive analyst Kent Austin, Freeze’s offensive coordinator at Liberty, believed in Thorne, though, and that outweighed the detractors.
Thorne’s first season at Auburn wasn’t a total disaster, but it wasn’t a success, either. Auburn rotated Thorne and Ashford at times, leading to an offense that clearly wasn’t maximizing its opportunities. Thorne threw 16 touchdowns, 10 interceptions and averaged a pitiful 135 passing yards per game. Auburn finished the season 6-7, ending on a particularly sour taste in a blowout 31-13 loss to Maryland in the Music City Bowl, in which Freeze washed his hands of the poor game plan by saying he had been focusing on recruiting.
What he wasn’t focused on, however, was finding a new quarterback.
To the outside world, it may have seemed obvious that Auburn should consider bringing in another quarterback. Some within the Auburn program also felt that way.
“It was obvious we didn’t have it,” said a program source. “Payton doesn’t have it.”
Freeze still believed, though. And he is obsessed with the idea of turning quarterback water into wine. In a 2022 interview with 247Sports touting his turning the raw Malik Willis into an NFL Draft selection, Freeze said “Nothing motivates me more than proving I can do it again with another quarterback.”
This offseason Freeze talked himself into the idea that if he could just put together a good enough supporting cast around Thorne, Auburn would see something resembling the 2021 version of the quarterback. Of course, that was easier said than done when you consider Thorne played with Walker, Nailor and Jayden Reed, who are all impact NFL players, plus rookie Keon Coleman, who was a first-round NFL Draft pick this year.
Freeze’s reluctance to add a transfer quarterback was two-fold, according to multiple sources:
1) He didn’t want to spend significant money on another QB
2) He didn’t want to upset his QB room and risk losing young quarterbacks Walker White — a true freshman and No. 5 QB in the 2024 class who recruiting analysts say will be ready to play in another year or two — and class of 2023 signee Hank Brown. Freeze liked them both as long-term options. Freeze has publicly said he couldn’t bring himself to spend $1 million on a transfer quarterback and instead wanted to focus on spending to build up the skill positions. He stressed the importance of signing five-star receiver Cam Coleman and four-star receiver Perry Thompson.
There was a moment of doubt, though. Auburn reached out to Washington State transfer quarterback Cam Ward very late in the process, according to multiple sources, to gauge whether Ward had finalized a decision and would still consider the Tigers. There was a faction of the Auburn program that wanted to go after Ward from the jump but Freeze and Austin were reluctant, according to sources, and never went all-in to get him. They decided they’d prefer to “just roll with what we have.”
Ward became the most highly sought-after transfer quarterback and ultimately picked Miami. He has guided the Hurricanes to a 4-0 record and No. 7 ranking as an early Heisman Trophy favorite. Miami’s decision to prioritize Ward looks brilliant so far.
Freeze’s inexperience in the transfer portal has caused challenges beyond the quarterback position, too. He could be slow to act, losing out on players he desired and needed, including offensive linemen, to more aggressive programs. He’d complain about having to get on the phone with high-profile transfer portal players, according to sources, and try to pass it off to other staffers. What works in the transfer portal is different from what Freeze values most in high school recruiting. You don’t have time to take it slow and try to build a relationship. Typically, veteran players want to know how they’ll be utilized, what the program is willing to pay and what the vision for the upcoming season will be. If that all lines up on a prospect’s first visit, he won’t keep visiting other schools for the official weekend song and dance the way a top high school recruit might.
“You have to be the first one on those guys, have a concise message and get them,” said a veteran SEC personnel source. “We’ll get you on a plane tonight.”
Lane Kiffin has mastered this approach which is why he’s the Portal King. Ole Miss signed 247Sports’ top-ranked transfer portal class, headlined by Texas A&M defensive lineman Walter Nolen, Florida edge-rusher Princely Umanmielen and South Carolina receiver Antwane “Juice” Wells Jr.
Freeze himself admitted his approach last December could have been better, saying, “I don’t think I’ve handled it very well, truthfully.”
Auburn missed out on multiple transfers it wanted that never made it to campus because of a competing program locking the player down before leaving. Auburn finished with the nation’s No. 27 transfer portal class, according to 247Sports, which ranked fifth-worst in the SEC.
“Idealistically I’d love to just sign a bunch of high school and build great relationships with them and never lose them,” Freeze said in December. “I don’t know — that may be in dream land with the way the climate is of college football today.”
In the spring, realizing the mistakes made in December, Auburn aggressively pursued and landed Penn State transfer receiver Keandre Lambert-Smith in the spring window. With Lambert-Smith paired with Coleman and Thompson, Freeze believed Thorne would prove his faith in him was the right move over taking another quarterback.
All it took was two games into the 2024 season to prove that theory wrong.
None of the buttons Freeze has pushed at the quarterback position this season have worked.
Thorne struggled mightily in a home loss to California in Week 2, throwing four interceptions and looking lost against the Bears’ defense. Freeze replaced him with Hank Brown as the starter in an easy win over New Mexico. But that all came crashing down Week 4 against Arkansas when Brown threw three first-half interceptions, forcing Freeze to turn back to Thorne for the second half. Freeze’s postgame comments following the 24-14 loss to the Razorbacks elicited ire from many within the college football world.
“I know that there’s people open and I know that we’re running the football,” Freeze said. “We’ve got to find a guy that won’t throw it to the other team, and we’ve got to find running backs that hold on to it.”
That prompted Wallace, who played for Freeze at Ole Miss, to unload on his former head coach.
“We’re approaching the point that he’s thrown so many QBs under the bus that maybe no one wants to play for him?” Wallace posted on “X,” the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “His offense helped me tremendously put numbers up when I blew my shoulder out. But why is it someone else’s fault every time there’s a loss?
“But when there’s a win, I watch the press conferences just to count how many times the word “I” is used. Appreciate what he did for me, (but) my son wouldn’t be playing for him, though.”
There’s little doubt that Wallace’s comments will be used against Freeze on the recruiting trail, where his Tigers are red-hot with the No. 4-ranked class in 2025 and hopes of flipping coveted QB Deuce Knight from Notre Dame. The hope among program sources and antsy boosters is Auburn can make a similar jump next year to what Miami is doing this season in head coach Mario Cristobal’s third year. Cristobal went 12-13 over his first two seasons but now looks like the ACC favorite. The primary reason of course is Ward, the quarterback that Freeze waited and waited to reach out to because of his belief in Thorne.
Freeze, buoyed by his success beating Alabama back-to-back seasons with Wallace and Chad Kelly as his quarterbacks, has unwavering belief in his abilities to both find the right quarterback and be able to maximize his potential. He knows what he wants and there’s not a person on his staff who will sway his opinion on a quarterback once his mind is made up.
Consider again what he said after his Willis success: “Nothing motivates me more than proving I can do it again with another quarterback.”
Freeze should be awfully motivated headed into next season then. In a highly-competitive SEC that now includes Texas and this weekend’s opponent Oklahoma, there isn’t a long runway to get it right. If this season keeps trending the way it currently is, Freeze will enter Year 3 with considerable outside noise about his long-term viability as the Tigers’ head coach. Freeze is a good fit personality-wise at Auburn, which buys him goodwill his predecessor Bryan Harsin never had, but the school’s passionate base of powerful boosters aren’t known for being the most patient when losses start racking up.
Through 17 games of the Freeze era in Auburn, it sure looks like he wasn’t able to “do it again with another quarterback.”
If he wants to be on the Plains past a third year, he’ll need to figure it out soon.
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