Hugh Freeze subtly calls out departing Auburn QBs while praising Jackson Arnold
At Senior Bowl practice in Mobile on Wednesday, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze spoke highly of incoming quarterback Jackson Arnold, but his comments also seemed to take a veiled shot at the Tigers’ outgoing QB room.
Reflecting on Arnold’s impressive background, Freeze emphasized his talent and natural fit for Auburn’s system.
“If you go back to his high school days, you don’t become the Gatorade Player of the Year without a great skill set,” Freeze said, per AL.com. “And when I see the way he functions with the fundamentals of that position in what we want to do, it’s a pretty natural fit. We can restore whatever confidence he may have lost for whatever reasons. That’s not for me to say.
“Our receivers are like, ‘this is different.’ This ball is… it’s spinning the right way.”
Freeze has never been one to shy away from criticism, and in today’s NIL-driven college football landscape, players are being called out more openly than ever. While he often critiqued Payton Thorne, the Michigan State transfer he relied on during his first two seasons, Freeze still had a soft spot for him. However, his praise of Arnold seemed to come at Thorne’s expense, as well as at the expense of other quarterbacks like Hank Brown, Holden Geriner, and Walker White, whose development stalled. Auburn’s receivers had opportunities to work with all of them, making their reaction to Arnold particularly telling.
The hope is that Arnold avoids the passive-aggressive jabs that plagued his predecessors. With Freeze eager to implement a new system, the Oklahoma transfer has a chance to prove why he was a five-star recruit. The talent in the receiver room is there—now Freeze just needs a quarterback he won’t look back on with regret.
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