Observations: Texas A&M 16, Auburn 10
The Tigers have had quite a few losses like this under Hugh Freeze. But this one might be the most extreme example of it.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Talk is cheap, but Hugh Freeze’s contract is not.
Freeze is getting paid $6.5 million each year to be the head football coach at Auburn. He is almost at the halfway point of his third season. He has lost two more games (16) than he has won (14). He has also lost, roughly, 72% of the SEC games he’s coached.
Auburn leadership gave Freeze a second chance to be a head coach in the SEC for several reasons. One of those reasons was his extensive offensive background. Another one of them was his history of pulling off memorable upsets.
Freeze had plenty of chances to get one of those Saturday. On the road, against a top-10 Texas A&M team, Auburn trailed by a single possession for all but the final 1:45 of the first half. After a miraculous interception that was nearly returned for a touchdown, Auburn got the ball with a chance to win three different times.
The Tigers ran 10 offensive plays for a total of -1 yard. That’s right: Negative one.
Again, nearing the midway point of his third season at Auburn, Freeze’s offense reached a brand-new low in a 16-10 loss Saturday in College Station. The Tigers finished with 177 yards of total offense, the lowest in eight years. They went 0-for on third downs, something that hasn’t happened in an Auburn game in 19 years.
“Offensively, that was unacceptable,” Freeze said. “Our defense played their tails off, well enough to win the game. We have two weeks to prepare for Georgia, and we will take that time to reevaluate everything related to our offense — how we prepare, personnel, everything.
“This isn’t on Jackson (Arnold) or any other player. It’s on our staff, and that starts with me, to fix it.”
But will it actually be fixed? After a week of talking about how not committing to the running game was part of Auburn’s close loss at Oklahoma — in which the running backs got a total of 13 combined carries — Freeze and his staff oversaw an offense that handed it off to Jeremiah Cobb and Damari Alston… eight times.
“Man, I know I sound like a broken record,” Freeze said afterwards. “It’s unacceptable.”
Correct and correct.
Texas A&M had scored 40-plus points in each of its first three games. Auburn held it to 16 points, not surrendering a touchdown after a 4-play, 66-yard opening drive.
Once again, Auburn can’t point to turnovers as the reason for a close loss. That excuse is so early fall 2024. And it can’t even point to mind-numbing special teams mistakes this week after giving away points there last Saturday at Oklahoma.
In fact, Texas A&M probably had the biggest self-inflicted wounds of the day — helping Auburn stay in the game in the first place.
No, the story of this latest missed opportunity for Auburn football was that a team in the 30th game of a coaching era played worse offensively than it did when it wasn’t built on back-to-back top-10 recruiting classes and big-money transfer portal moves.
It’s nothing you haven’t seen before from the Tigers in a streak of four straight losing seasons that could slip to a fifth in the near future: Auburn’s defense plays well enough to win. Auburn’s offense doesn’t take advantage and loses.
Multiple head coaches, multiple offensive coordinators and countless offensive assistants have overseen this same sequence for years now.
The sales pitch for this 2025 season for Auburn was that things were about to start clicking now with the talent in place. The Tigers had what it took to get over the hump and start winning more games again. The offense was going to be different.
“We have too good of skill players and quarterbacks and running backs,” I think we’re solid in the o-line, too. But we certainly aren’t playing like it. So that falls on me and the staff to figure out why.
But that same old talk is sounding cheaper and cheaper by the week.
Here are three lengthy Observations from Auburn’s 16-10 loss at Texas A&M, along with One Big Stat and the Quote of the Day.
Auburn did not do what Hugh Freeze said it would do
Let’s take you back to one month ago. Auburn beat Baylor, 38-24, for its first road win against an opponent projected to at least go bowling in several years.
It was a season opener marked by the Tigers hammering the Bears on the ground to the tune of 307 yards. Auburn ran the ball 52 times and only threw it 17 times. It was so un-Freeze-like, it was remarkable.
In that game, Cobb and Alston combined for 32 carries and 158 rushing yards. That comes out to an average of 4.94 yards per carry.
Against Oklahoma last weekend, Arnold dropped back to pass 48 times. Two days later, Freeze said “I don’t know that dropping back that many times is going to win a lot of games in this league.”
So, on Saturday against Texas A&M, Arnold dropped back to pass an estimated 47 times — 33 pass attempts, nine scrambles and five sacks.
That’s right: Just one fewer dropback.