Phil Steele predicts 'vastly improved' Jackson Arnold at Auburn

Auburn is coming into a very important season in what’s year three for the program under Hugh Freeze. Per the prediction by Phil Steele, though, the Tigers will be much better to him in 2025.

Steele spoke about Auburn while appearing as a guest to start ‘The Paul Finebaum Show’ on Thursday. He was optimistic about the Tigers’ upcoming season, starting on offense with an expected improvement by QB Jackson Arnold, while mentioning some names to be excited about on their defense.

“You know, first of all, you take a look at their quarterback that they have in Jackson Arnold and he struggled last year at Oklahoma, right? But I mentioned why he struggled at Oklahoma last year. No offensive line and, basically, his receiving corps wiped out by injury,” Steele said. “Now Jackson Arnold steps in. He has my No. 12 rated offensive line in the country, my No. 6 set of wide receivers to throw to. I think you’re going to see a vastly improved Jackson Arnold at the quarterback position.

“Defensively, there’s talent there. You look at Keldric Faulk at defensive end up front. He’s a potential first-round draft pick. And they brought in a ton of transfers in the defensive front seven.”

With that, Steele thinks he has Auburn pretty well figured out, considering the projections he had for them last season and into this one. However, he just didn’t account for 22 turnovers, 13 being interceptions and 15 total just from the Tigers’ quarterbacks, affecting what he otherwise thought was a better team from 2023 to 2024 and he thinks should be better, again naming Auburn as one of his teams in Most Improved, from 2024 to 2025.

“You know, last year, I said Auburn was going to be one of the most-improved teams in the country. I think I had them as like my eighth most-improved team. They went from -45 yards per game in SEC play all the way up to +62 yards per game,” Steele said. “They were a much-improved team. They just couldn’t handle the turnovers that their quarterbacks were producing last year. I think they should cut down on the turnovers, and I believe Jackson Arnold will. They could be a sneaky team.”

That said, Steele already has four games that he won’t favor Auburn in during conference play. That only gives the Tigers a margin of two or three games on the rest of the schedule to determine whether it’s an acceptable season, another so-so one, or a fifth-straight losing campaign down on The Plains.

“I do have them as an underdog at Oklahoma, at Texas A&M, home against Georgia, home against Alabama. But all the other games are in a winnable area,” Steele noted.

At this point, there’s no question of what this season needs to be for Freeze at Auburn. Still, based on everything he projects with his annual statistics, the Tigers should be much, much better, at least compared to what happened last year.

“The pressure is on Hugh Freeze this year. No doubt he’s got to come up with a winning year,” Steele said. “Probably should have had a winning year last year, though. I thought they were a much better team than the 5-7 record.”