{"id":3589,"date":"2025-07-17T19:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/3589\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T19:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:40:08","slug":"hugh-freeze-qb-jackson-arnold-are-confident-auburn-can-be-a-winner-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/3589\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugh Freeze, QB Jackson Arnold are confident Auburn can be a winner in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA (AP) – Hugh Freeze is in unfamiliar territory as he heads into year three as Auburn\u2019s coach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The former Arkansas State, Ole Miss and Liberty coach only had one losing season in his decade as a Division I head coach, but his first two seasons at Auburn have yielded meager results at 6-7 and 5-7.<\/p>\n

Last fall marked the first football season without a head coaching change in the SEC since 2018, but Freeze certainly enters 2025 on the hot seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad I\u2019m at a place that has those expectations,\u201d Freeze said Tuesday at SEC media days. \u201cI think when you\u2019ve done this awhile, you really don\u2019t give into a lot of the pressure stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everything starts at quarterback with the highest profile of Auburn\u2019s 19 incoming transfers. Freeze signed former Oklahoma starter<\/a> Jackson Arnold, hoping he can finally provide stability. Starting quarterback Payton Thorne and his backup Hank Brown both struggled last season particularly with ball security, as the Tigers threw 13 interceptions as a team and finished 119th nationally in turnover margin.<\/p>\n

Arnold himself struggled through a difficult season with the Sooners, losing his starting job for two games and playing the final five games of the regular season with an interim offensive coordinator. But between Freeze\u2019s quarterback-friendly system and a year of SEC experience now under his belt, there is optimism about the fresh start being mutually beneficial.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Freeze isn\u2019t scared to push the ball down the field, which I absolutely love,\u201d Arnold said. \u201cI thought with my experience running the RPO game, I think it meshed well with what Coach Freeze wants to do with his offense.\u201d<\/p>\n

He will have two of Auburn\u2019s top three receivers from last year in terms of both yards and touchdowns back with Cam Coleman and Malcolm Simmons, along with incoming transfer Eric Singleton Jr. from Georgia Tech. That combined with a returning nucleus on the offensive line led by center Connor Lew has Freeze expecting a sizable jump offensively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my favorite offensive line when I look at it on paper,\u201d Freeze said. \u201cWe\u2019d better be able to run the football and protect the quarterback, because I think we\u2019re pretty talented up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heading into 2025 Freeze is not only 11-14 overall, but 5-11 in SEC play, 2-6 in one-possession games and perhaps most damaging in the eyes of fans and administrators, 0-4 against rivals Alabama and Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur roster is one that can compete with those teams,\u201d Freeze said, directly addressing the rivalry shortcomings. \u201cWe\u2019ve been in the games the first two years, but we haven\u2019t found a way to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Auburn will get both games at home, with Georgia playing at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Oct. 11 and Alabama coming in for the regular-season finale Nov. 29.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a>. AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) – Hugh Freeze is in unfamiliar territory as he heads into year three as Auburn\u2019s coach.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[439],"tags":[49,48,551,546,559,527,525,523,526,524,82],"class_list":["post-3589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaaf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-college","tag-college-football","tag-collegefootball","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaaf","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}