Hugh Freeze admits to one big mistake he made with Jackson Arnold: 'I get greedy sometimes'

Auburn has been plagued by inconsistent quarterback play for the past two years under coach Hugh Freeze, something that’s been crippling to both the offense and the team’s ambitions. The Tigers are hoping Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold can change that.

The season opener against Baylor was a good start. Auburn won 38-24 and Arnold accounted for 108 yards passing, 137 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

“He was really patient,” Freeze said. “I mean he only had one play where I thought he was careless with the ball, and that was the pressure one.”

That’s not to say things were perfect outside of that one play. But Freeze put more of the blame on himself than Jackson Arnold for other miscues.

“I allowed him, I regret it, we had a drive where we were really getting some chunk yards and it’s second-and-four and allowed him to throw an RPO to Malcolm (Simmons),” Freeze said. “In normal situations, that’s fine, but man, the run was another gash. I mean, (Jeremiah) Cobb was going to rip that counter off for a lot of yards. That’s on me, that’s not on Jackson.”

Freeze further broke down what Jackson Arnold was looking at on the play. And further took the blame for it.

“I gave him the green light to do it even though the safeties — they just were not going to attach themselves to the box,” Freeze said. “They were sitting at 10 yards and they were not moving. And our normal rule for that is you hand the ball off.

“But, boy, I get greedy sometimes and it’s hard when you have the receivers we have. But you’re averaging about seven yards a gain you probably need to fight that urge to take the shot there, particularly in that, I think we would have scored on that drive and made the outcome a little easier.”

So how did Arnold do overall? He threw for only 108 yards and didn’t find the end zone via the air. Auburn still won convincingly, but it will likely need him to do more in the future.

Yet Freeze was full of praise. What Arnold did was play within himself.

“Very patient,” Freeze said. “Truthfully, the first thing I tell our kids is how many times I put them in a bad situation or offensive staff did. By the way, I thought (Derrick) Nix and the offensive staff did a really nice job of game-planning first downs and getting ahead of the chains. He did a nice job throughout the game of getting us off to a positive drive.”

As for Jackson Arnold himself, Freeze was effusive in his praise. If that continues all year, Auburn could be a team to be reckoned with.

“I thought his decision-making, because when they’re flat-footed, he knows we have guys that could run by them, but the box is still light,” Freeze said. “And that’s the temptation that a quarterback that can throw it with the arm strength to the outside that he has (faces). And the throw he made there it actually hit Malcolm in the hands. Now he had a guy kind of in his vision, but it was a good throw.

“I own that, not him. So I thought his decision-making was really good, other than the one carelessness with the ball.”