Hugh Freeze on Auburn's quarterback situation: 'I don't want to play a lot'

No matter which quarterback Auburn coach Hugh Freeze put in the game against Texas A&M, the passing game couldn’t find a rhythm. The Tigers played three different QBs on Saturday against the Aggies but failed to get much going through the air in an eventual 27-10 loss.

Payton Thorne, Holden Geriner and Robby Ashford combined to finish just 9-of-23 (39.1%) passing for just 56 yards. The Auburn offense as a whole ended the day with a mere 200 yards as the Tigers’ only touchdown came from the defensive end on a fumble recovery.

Taking the podium following the game, Freeze addressed the struggles from his quarterbacks.

“Well, I don’t want to play a lot (of quarterbacks),” he said. “I certainly don’t want to sit here and make a lot of assumptions without watching film. We had people open and we either missed ’em or the pressure distracted us it seemed. I’ve got to watch the film and see what exactly was going on to cause that, but we certainly missed a few opportunities in the passing game.”

The Texas A&M defense came away with five sacks on Auburn as the Tigers quarterbacks simply couldn’t evade the pass rush. That in turn started to bleed over into the running game as the Aggies no longer had to consider a threat through the air.

Auburn finished the first half with 102 yards rushing as running back Jarquez Hunter reeled off a few long runs early. However, they’d go on to manage just 42 more yards on the ground in the second half thanks to their one-dimensional attack.

“I thought we were running it efficiently early on,” Freeze said. “At one point, Jarquez was averaging like eight yards a carry. But you’ve gotta stay balanced and we just weren’t efficient at all in throwing the ball to open receivers when he had ’em for whatever reason. Could’ve been pressure.

“We’ll have to look at all of it and see. But we certainly were struggling with that aspect of the game that resulted in a lot of negative plays.”

Thorne started the first few games of the season for Auburn to total 517 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions as the Tigers began 3-0. However, with Saturday being their SEC opener, it’s clear they have to find answers at the quarterback position if they hope to compete in conference play moving forward.

Things won’t get any easier for the Auburn offense in Week 5 as it hosts the vaunted Georgia defense at 2:30 p.m. CT.