Auburn Football Offensive Preview
A team that has never won in the state of California teams up with a coach that has never played west of Utah to take on the University of California Golden Bears in Berkeley, California.
“I saw two communist ladies kissing.” - Hugh Freeze, lying to his Bible group about why he lost 30-13 to the California Golden Bears.
Hello my fellow Marxists and Stalinists, blessed morn to all who tirelessly fight to eradicate the world of the evils of capitalism. (A non-negligible amount of Auburn fans earnestly believe that we in the state of California are all communists, so I’m just going to roll with this one). The word of the day in today’s Communist California Common Core Standards is hypocrite. What does it mean to be a hypocrite? Why, let’s ask Auburn.
On November 29th, 2022, Auburn signed Liberty head coach Hugh Freeze to be its head coach in a six year deal that will pay him $6.5 million per year.
Auburn had this to say about the hire:
“After a thoughtful, thorough and well-vetted search, we ended where we started, with Hugh Freeze,” Cohen said. “Of all the candidates we considered, Hugh was the best fit. Fit has several meanings, but the most important factors were student-athlete development, football strategy, recruiting and SEC experience.”
This is the “former Ole Miss and Liberty University head coach who abruptly resigned from Ole Miss after using the university phone to hire escorts, direct messaged a sexual assault survivor and allegedly forced an underage student to change in front of him during his time at Briarcrest Christian School [a K-12 school].”
Of course, this whole saga started when Hugh Freeze, a man who preaches integrity above all else, attempted to blame his Ole Miss recruiting violations on his predecessor, Houston Nutt. Nutt responded by suing the school for defamation, and in the course of the investigation, found that Freeze had a peculiar habit of using his university phone to frequently “misdial numbers” that just so happened to belong to escorts.
Regarding the “cheating” allegations, Hugh Freeze was hired to be the head coach of Ole Miss, and immediately flipped three 5-star recruits (all future NFL first round draft picks — Laremy Tunsil, Laquon Treadwell, and Robert Nkemdiche). The NCAA investigated (remember, this is from the era where it was not cool to pay players to join your team), Freeze called a bunch of journalists off-the-record and pinned the blame on Nutt, and the NCAA ultimately found Freeze guilty of “13 rules violations, including nine that were classified as Level I, which the governing body deems the most serious.” This included “a lack of institutional control,” basically the most serious allegation the NCAA could accuse someone of, and they for sure slapped Freeze’s wrists really hard for this (Tunsil acknowledged the violations were true well after the fact). Ole Miss beat Nick Saban’s Alabama twice, so no one really cared about this, but during the course of the Nutt investigation, they discovered his frequent escort communiqué, and that was a bridge too far for Ole Miss. The good Christian coach had a bad escort problem? Pass. (Jerry Falwell and Liberty promptly swooped Hugh Freeze up, because they care not for Christian hypocrites, so long as they generate revenue).
As part of his Auburn hiring, Sports Illustrated reported that Freeze was to relinquish control of his Twitter accounts. Probably because they were worried he’d text prostitutes in between tweeting out Bible verses. They decided to fire Bryan Harsin for allegedly bringing his former Boise State staffer with him to Auburn so that they could continue their affair, and in his place, they decided to hire this whoremonger? A thoughtful, thorough, and well-vetted search indeed.
But let’s take a step back here. Sure, he’s a gigantic holier-than-thou hypocrite, but is he a good football coach? Surely this is a “win at all costs” type of hire, à la Urban Meyer or Art Briles. Plenty of schools in the South are willing to overlook personal failings so long as you’re winning football games. But Hugh Freeze is a guy that led DK Metcalf, AJ Brown, Van Jefferson, and Evan Engram to a 5-7 season in 2016 at Ole Miss. He took a plethora of 1st/2nd round NFL talent, and turned in a losing season. This is the guy Auburn hired to be their head coach? Now that paying players is above-board for everyone to do, what advantage does Freeze bring in recruiting?
We here in Commie-fornia don’t care that you support sex workers or go the extra mile in supporting student-athletes (cough). We’re all about personal freedom here. The issue is a guy who uses himself as an example to his student-athletes on the meaning of integrity. “I use either myself or our coaches or our team as examples and I think examples are great way of teaching,” Freeze once told the Jason Romano Sports Spectrum podcast, “Jesus taught that way. So we work hard at teaching them a character trait class every year.”
Great example you set, Hugh Freeze.
Hypocrite.
Quarterback
First, let’s take a moment to acknowledge how hilarious it is that Auburn made a mockery of former QB Bo Nix (son of Auburn great QB Patrick Nix), turning his Heisman chances into a meme (“Bo Nix has improved so much under this new offense. He's focused. He's having fun. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a dark horse for the Heisman”) — and Nix only became a serious Heisman contender after leaving Auburn. At the time of this writing, DraftKings has Nix with the 5th best odds to win the Heisman. Boy, it sure would be nice to be writing about an Auburn legacy, 5-star QB in this section, wouldn’t it? Despite playing with a subpar offensive line and mediocre receivers (not to mention a constant churn of coaching staff), he drew 100% of the ire of Auburn fans for each loss. So Nix flew to the opposite corner of the country and was much better off for it. Funny how that works.
This offseason, Auburn lost quarterbacks TJ Finley and Zach Calzada to the transfer portal, and gained Michigan State transfer Payton Thorne.
Thorne is kind of a dink-and-dunk quarterback, with good short-to-intermediate accuracy, but he rarely launches passes downfield. It’s rare to see him launch anything more than 30 yards downfield, and usually only does so when he has a man open deep down the sidelines (his biggest plays are usually when his receivers create big yards after the catch). The majority of his passes are short throws under ten yards (or safe passing concepts, throwing behind the line of scrimmage, etc).
Thorne handles pressure well, keeping his eyes downfield, and has good movement in the pocket.
He’s not quite a dual-threat quarterback, but he has enough mobility to scramble for yards when the opportunity is there. He generally uses his mobility to buy time in the pocket. As seen in the clips above and below, he does have a tendency to throw off-balance or on the run, and his mechanics break down a bit, with a tendency for passes to sail high:
When his mechanics are sound, he is an accurate quarterback capable of making some nice throws:
Thorne does trust his arm a ton, which can lead to him trying to force balls in tight coverage, leading to turnover opportunities for the opposing secondary.
Thorne does have a strong arm, but I only really saw it when he was in “F— it, we’re losing bad” territory:
He’s a good schematic fit for Auburn’s run-heavy offense as he can attack option routes and defensive backs in single coverage, which results from opponents having to commit extra defenders to stop the Auburn run game, which we’ll see in a bit.
Auburn returns Oregon transfer QB Robby Ashford. Ashford is a big athlete; a dual-threat quarterback with a big arm and an excellent runner.
In fact, it’s the threat of his running ability that really opens up the passing game: if Ashford is throwing downfield, the safety is rarely in sight, as teams often have to stack the box against Ashford and the Auburn run game.
Ashford shows a lot of potential (probably why he was a 4-star QB at Oregon). This sort of play was few and far between, but here he made a great throw when he trusted his arm:
Last year was his first year of college experience, so he was rough and unpolished throwing the ball, to say the least. He doesn’t throw out of his drop, and he’ll often take extra steps or double clutch the football, not trusting what he’s seeing. He’ll wait until a route is visually open, at which point the window for the throw has already closed.
This means that he’d struggle even with easy throws:
Ashford is inexperienced at reading a defense, and often threw into coverages he shouldn’t. Frequently he threw interceptions to players he didn’t account for (often a linebacker, although this is a safety in the following clip):
Similarly, he made rookie mistakes—like staring down receivers—to make it even easier to pick him off:
Again, this is a presnap decision to throw to his first read, and the throw is not remotely there:
That is to say that Robby Ashford has a lot of raw talent, but it’s impossible to tell how much he’s developed in the offseason. With a great quarterback coach, he could be very good.
Running back
It’s cheating to put this here, but Auburn’s best runner is undoubtedly Robby Ashford. He’s such an integral part of the run game that I have to imagine Auburn continues to give him snaps even with Thorne as the starting quarterback.
Firstly, he’s fast:
Secondly, Ashford is not at all afraid of contact, and can definitely lay the wood on tacklers:
Ashford is difficult to contain the pocket, and can use his speed to get to the edge:
Of course, with a quarterback like Robby Ashford, you’re going to see a lot of designed QB run plays:
Here he gets some great blocks (RB, TE, OL), but you can’t get any better than knifing through the Alabama defense:
Of course, it’s not a surprise that Ashford might be more comfortable running the ball, and he’s an effective scrambler when the play breaks down:
Auburn’s star returning running back, Jarquez Hunter, has been indefinitely suspended due to some sort of sex tape scandal. Of course, Hugh Freeze refuses to talk about it (probably jealous he didn’t get to be the first one accused of sexual misconduct), and Jarquez Hunter is still listed as the first RB on the official depth chart, but he was also listed there last week and did not play.
So let’s first start with RBs who for sure are available. The new #2 is RB Damari Alston. He’s a versatile running back with decent (but not breakaway) speed, able to break some tackles:
Someone not on my radar until last weekend was the freshman RB Jeremiah Cobb, who showed considerably more speed:
Moving away from the all-purpose type of backs, they also have the undersized (5’7”, 170 lbs) USF transfer Brian Battie on one end of the spectrum, and former walk-on Sean Jackson (5’9”, 236 lbs) on the other:
Because I have no idea if Jarquez Hunter will play, I suppose I should still cover him here. Jarquez Hunter is a well-rounded back with versatility in both the run and pass game, and shows pretty good hands for a running back. It sounds cliché but he really is a well-rounded back in that he’s pretty good in all areas, but doesn’t truly excel in any one category. He’s fast (allegedly runs a 4.4 40), but I didn’t really see breakaway speed. He’ll break weak arm tackles, but he’s not going to bulldoze through anyone. He’s got good vision and patience, but I feel like he needs good blocking to succeed. I think that if he were unavailable to play, Auburn would most miss his ability as a pass-catcher, as I’m not sure any of the other RBs can be as reliably called on to catch passes out of the backfield as Hunter (and both Thorne and Ashford need that safety valve pass available).
I would say Hunter’s best running back attribute is his balance. He does a good job of keeping his feet on contact, often picking up extra yards after initial contact.
Here he keeps his feet and manages to tiptoe the sideline to get to the endzone:
Here he shows off his ability as a one-cut back:
Here he shows nice vision and a bit of speed:
And what highlight reel could be complete without hurdling over someone on your way to the endzone:
As mentioned earlier, the Auburn run game frequently sucks defenders in, which opens up the opportunity to hit a receiver that gets behind them. Here Jarquez Hunter is the one making that throw:
Whoever the running back is, it’s probably going to come down to how effective the new offensive line can work together as a unit. They have three new starters along the offensive line: Tulsa transfer LT Dillion Wade, ECU transfer OC Avery Jones, and WKU transfer RT Gunner Britton — all 4-stars, per 247sports. And did I mention that their 5 starting offensive linemen weigh a collective 1,607 lbs? They’re massive. So there’s that, too.
Receivers
The transfer portal has made it more difficult to find clips of relevant players (for example, I recorded the entire 2022 Auburn season last year, only for most of those players to leave). Luckily, Auburn poached North Texas’s top receiver, Jyaire Shorter (who’s 6’2”, btw), and so I was able to get a 2-for-1 last week, as I also had North Texas’s entire season already recorded.
Jyaire Shorter is an excellent route runner with good contested catch ability. He doesn’t have elite speed, but he has decent enough straight line speed, and his strong hands compensate for the lack of separation.
Here he does the same, this time hauling it in with one hand:
Shorter uses his route running ability to create separation.
And when it works, it works:
Shorter is a deep threat who can take advantage of mismatches in the secondary:
Playing a similar role for Auburn is Camden Brown (and JSU transfer Shane Hooks, for that matter). Brown is another big[ger] body receiver with some straight line speed, although the sophomore is obviously not as crisp of a route runner as Shorter.
Camden Brown, in particular, was a common target for the endzone fade and back shoulder throw due to his body control and ability to bring in the football:
Auburn’s most reliable returning receiver is Ja’Varrius Johnson. Johnson is a bit undersized but has significant speed. He can occasionally use his speed when he lines up out wide, but his size lends him to being more of a slot receiver.
Koy Moore, another outside receiver, showed a penchant for being able to high point the football during contested catches:
Koy Moore also showed some nice after-the-catch ability:
(Sorry about this clip; this is back when ESPN thought it was a good idea to cut in and override the announcers with every Aaron Judge at-bat, for the discerning fan who absolutely needs to see Aaron Judge tie the record live instead of on replay, but doesn’t care enough to watch the actual baseball game. Of course, Judge tied that AL homerun record 4 days later.)
One noticeable shortcoming of Koy Moore, however, was that he didn’t have the strongest hands:
I didn’t see a ton of now-sophomore Omari Kelly, but I was impressed when he managed to make this catch after it was deflected by the defensive back right in front of him:
And here’s Malcolm Johnson Jr. doing more of the same:
I don’t know if you’re seeing the pattern here, but Auburn loves attacking down the sideline and when they can get a receiver in one-on-one coverage.
The new starting tight end is FIU transfer Rivaldo Fairweather. Unfortunately I didn’t see much of him in the UMass game last week (no targets, a couple blocks), but he’s a tight end coming from a spread system at FIU, so I assume he’s more of a receiver, and Auburn does need targets in the middle of the field.
One tight end I did see, however, was Luke Deal. Here he is making a great last second adjustment to the ball thrown a bit off-target:
This is why I watch the games: plays like this aren’t going to show up on a highlight reel. He had to make a diving one-hand catch for that yard. It’s an effort play.
And again, here he makes another good adjustment to the ball thrown a bit behind him:
If Auburn can find success through the air, it will probably mean a long day for Cal.
Conclusion
This game is going to come down to whether Cal can slow the Auburn run game. Auburn has a massive offensive line, and they’re going to get yards on the ground regardless. QB Robby Ashford rushed for 100+ yards and 2 TDs against both Mississippi State and Alabama last year (and Auburn rushed for 318 total yards against Alabama). That’s insane. But crucially, neither team let Auburn pick up any yards through the air. Auburn had to scheme up creative run plays just to get yards, because passing the ball got them nowhere. Safeties gave Auburn no respect whatsoever in the passing game, and Auburn is going to need to hit at least some downfield passes to open up the offense. Expect Payton Thorne to use RPOs and the threat of the run to open up passing lanes and try to keep the Cal defense honest.
On the other side of the ball, Cal will have a much better defensive line to contend with than last week, particularly with Matthew Cindric likely out. I expect we’ll see a lot more Bear Raid passing concepts this game, and Cal probably won’t roll up another 347 rushing yards on Auburn.
As a Cal team with hope, increasing expectations, playing in a Pac-12 After Dark game, I have to say that this could very well be a back-and-forth game. Cal fans will have to show up in Memorial Saturday night, and band together in the stadium to collectively provide the largest home team advantage possible. To paraphrase the wise words of an Auburn football legend:
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other… I believe in one thing only, the power of human will… Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.
I’m not saying beating Auburn would be a miracle, but that perhaps by uniting together under a common Cal banner, this could be the start of a miraculous season. A revolution, if you will.
As always,
金熊加油！
Go Bears!
This is your magnum opus
All reactionaries are p̶a̶p̶e̶r̶ Auburn tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality, they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of view, it is not the reactionaries but the ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ Golden Bears who are powerful. - Mao Zedong