Observations: Arkansas 24, Auburn 14
For the second time in as many tries this season, the Tigers had five turnovers and lost a home game to a team it beat on the road last year.
QB Payton Thorne (Grayson Belanger/Auburn Tigers)
AUBURN — The runway was there.
After losing seven of its last 10 games in 2023 — a four-game losing streak to stronger programs, a three-game winning streak against weaker programs, and then a three-game losing streak to a wild range of opponents — Hugh Freeze and the Auburn football program had to show progress in 2024.
The schedule gods, usually cruel to Auburn, seemed to bless the Tigers this time. Auburn would open the season with five straight home games, including four straight matchups in which it would be a sure favorite. The two power-conference matchups were coming against teams the Tigers beat last season, too.
Take care of business in the first four, and you’ve got some momentum heading into a tougher final two-thirds of the schedule. Even in a patient rebuilding mode like Freeze wants, there would be clear-cut opportunities to beat opponents that did not have a talent advantage.
Now, four weeks into the season, the plane isn’t even off the ground for Auburn. And there isn’t much room left to avoid a massive crash.
“I don't have the words,” Freeze said after Auburn’s 24-14 loss to Arkansas on Saturday. “It's just sickening, sickening, that we can't take care of the football on offense. I've got to get that fixed.”
For the second time in as many chances this month, Auburn has lost a low-scoring home game to a team it beat last season away from Jordan-Hare Stadium. Both games have come with five — yes, five — turnovers from the Tigers.
They previously hadn’t done that as a team since 2017. Now they’ve done it twice in the span of three weeks, and they came in the only games in which they haven’t faced one of the worst defenses in Division I football.
Freeze was hired, in large part, to bring explosive offense back to the Plains. So far in his Auburn tenure, his offenses have only generated more than 31 points and 450 yards just once in 12 games against a power-conference opponent: A 48-10 blowout of Arkansas last season.
Arkansas looked like it was destined to fire Sam Pittman after that loss. Auburn looked like it might have momentum after that win. Instead, Pittman is the one leaving this rematch with a non-losing record at his current spot.
Freeze is not. He’s now 8-9, with a 4-8 record against power-conference opponents so far. Instead of making the forward progress Auburn needs, the on-field results are regressing.
An offseason marked by Freeze sticking to his guns on offense — revamping his staff to include more of his former assistants, taking more ownership of the play-calling and ultimately deciding to stay with the quarterbacks he brought to the program last year — has deteriorated in less than a full month of action.
"We've got to look at ourselves first as coaches,” Freeze said. “I don't think it's scheme. … Obviously, we're not coaching it well enough and have to find young men that will do it the way they're coached.”
And, again, Auburn was the favored and more-talented team in both the losses to Cal and Arkansas. It will likely be an underdog in each of its next four games. The next two come against two of the strongest programs in the sport from a recruiting perspective.
The Tigers will likely have to pull off an upset or two just to make a bowl game.
Auburn’s defense wasn’t completely blameless Saturday, giving up third-and-long conversion after third-and-long conversion. Several streaks of those directly led to Arkansas points. Obvious penalties, busted assignments and questionable play-calls piled up.
But Auburn finished the game with nearly 100 more total yards and 3.1 more yards per play than Arkansas. It should have been enough for a win, at home, with what you would expect from an SEC offense.
Instead, as the case has often been for Auburn against power-conference opponents for several years running, a massively inefficient offense was the main culprit in a loss.
And the flight conditions are only going to get tougher from here.
“Life is full of tests, and we're being tested,” Freeze said. “And we're either going to pass the next test or fail it. There's no running from that. There's no hiding from it, as coaches and players. How we handle those moments, the good and the bad, really speaks to who you are.”
Here are three critical Observations from Auburn’s 24-14 loss to Arkansas, along with Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Night.
QB Hank Brown (Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)