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It’s only 5 games in, but you have to consider Hugh Freeze’s 1st season on The Plains as a positive trending upward. Hanging with the No. 1 team in the country for 4 quarters is an illustration of it. Granted, Freeze isn’t in it for moral victories. But you have to start somewhere, and playing the 2-time defending national champions to a 1-possession game is a good place to start.
In fact, you might consider that the Tigers are perhaps a decent quarterback away from contending in the SEC West. Not too shabby considering this is Freeze’s initial campaign compared to where the program was upon his arrival.
Here’s a look at how Auburn has performed to this point in the season.
Player of the Year (so far): Jaylin Simpson
The senior corner is having his coming-out party. He leads the SEC and is tied for the nation’s lead with 4 interceptions in the first 5 games. The first one, against UMass, he returned for a touchdown. Coming into the season, he had 3 career interceptions.
Simpson is a leader in an Auburn defense that ranks 6th in the SEC against the pass. That may not sound like much, but it’s a vast improvement over the past 2 seasons, when the Tigers weren’t even in the top 10. So that’s part of that upward trend we alluded to earlier.
Simpson is 5th on the team in total tackles with 15 and 2nd in solos with 14.
Freshman of the Year (so far): Kayin Lee
The 5-11, 181-pounder from Ellenwood, Ga., uses his speed and power to make an immediate impact on the Tigers’ secondary. The corner has played in all 5 games and has recorded 13 tackles, including 9 solo. He has a team-high 3 pass breakups to go along with a QB hurry and a forced fumble.
The 4-star true freshman uses his 4.4 speed to keep pace with any receiver he’s covering, and he has been a bright spot when called upon in the Auburn secondary.
Biggest surprise: Marcus Harris
The senior DL has been a beast in the trenches. He leads the team with 5 tackles for loss. That includes 2 sacks, which is tied for the team lead with Eugene Asante and Cam Riley. Harris is 3rd on the team with 19 total tackles, 12 of them solo. In addition, he has a pass breakup and a forced fumble. Harris has done it all on the Auburn DL.
Prior to this season, Harris had a career total of 86 tackles. He recorded a career-high 30 last season. He has stepped up his game in an amazing way and become a leader on an emerging Tigers defense.
Biggest concern: QB play
Auburn is last in the SEC in passing offense, by a wide margin. The Tigers are averaging just 156.2 yards through the air per game. That’s nearly 40 yards behind the next-lowest number (Alabama at 195.4). The Tigers have thrown for more than 94 yards in just 2 games this season, both against non-Power 5 teams (203 vs. UMass and 340 vs. Samford).
Against the 3 Power-5 teams the Tigers have faced, Auburn is averaging 79.3 passing yards per game. In those games, QBs Payton Thorne and Robby Ashford have combined for a QB rating of 91.3. Thorne has a personal rating of 125.76 for the season, which ranks 90th nationally. Auburn’s QB play must improve if the Tigers are to remain competitive over the 2nd half of the season.
Developing trend: Immediate competitiveness
The Texas A&M game may be the outlier, but Auburn has been competitive in each game. Whether it’s on the road to Cali or facing the nation’s top-ranked team, Freeze has the Tigers competing for 60 minutes.
We knew it would take time to upgrade the talent level, and that is holding true. But the fire is there, and Freeze is ahead of schedule in building a winning culture at Auburn. It’s not quite there yet, but this program is headed in the right direction.
Key stat: Red-zone conversions
Just getting to the red zone doesn’t mean much, either for or against the Tigers. Auburn leads the SEC in holding opponents to 69.23 percent scoring in the red zone. Out of 13 attempts, opponents have scored just 6 TDs to go along with 3 FGs.
But the Tigers haven’t been great in the red zone themselves. Auburn is scoring 79 percent of the time, which ranks 13th in the SEC. Only Kentucky (76.47 percent) has been less successful in the red zone. The Tigers have scored 12 TDs in 19 red-zone attempts, plus 3 FGs.
First impression about Week 7: Huge road test at Tiger Stadium
Auburn comes off its bye week with a huge road test in Baton Rouge against LSU at Tiger Stadium. Though the visitor has won the past 2 meetings between the teams, the home team won 7 of the previous 8 and 18 of 20.
But winning away from Jordan-Hare is not the easiest thing to do. Auburn hasn’t tasted victory on the road in the SEC since Oct. 16, 2021, a 38-23 victory at Arkansas. Beating the Bayou Bengals would go a long way in getting Auburn where it wants to be.
Glenn Sattell is an award-winning freelance writer for Saturday Down South.
