When Hugh Freeze fired Philip Montgomery and announced that he was taking over play-calling duties, I had deja vu. I’m sure plenty of Auburn fans did.

This is the Gus Malzahn play-calling debate all over again.

I liken it to Michael Scott with the vasectomy. “Snip, snap, snip, snap, snip, snap. You have no idea the physical toll that 3 vasectomies have on a person.”

I have no idea the physical toll it takes on Auburn fans to have a head coach constantly going back and forth with calling offensive plays. It can’t be pleasant. Everyone needs a place to funnel their anger. If you can’t even settle on that, you’ll go crazy.

Some would argue that Auburn fans are crazy. I’d argue that passion drives this sport, and if you operated a major college football program in the same state as Nick Saban’s Alabama, you’d be a little crazy, too.

(That sounds like a shot. It’s not. Auburn playing “All the above” for the start of the 4th quarter for Cadillac Williams’ home debut as the interim coach against Texas A&M was one of my favorite college football moments of recent memory.)

What’s not crazy is that Freeze is back to calling plays. That’s intriguing and daunting.

At SEC Media Days in July, I applauded how Freeze was transparent and self-aware on that subject.

“I think once upon a time I was probably one of the better play-callers in college football. Obviously better players make you a better play-caller. I don’t know that I was the greatest play-caller or one of the best play-callers the last few years at Liberty,” Freeze said in July. “I managed the game really well and gave our kids a chance to obviously win some huge games, and we were really good on defense, and I kind of played to that.

“But coming back knowing what was all-encompassing to bring Auburn back, sitting in the chair that I have to sit in, I needed help.”

At the time of that decision, Freeze had a ton on his plate. He had to assemble a new coaching staff, mostly sign a new recruiting class, persuade his own roster to stay, be aggressive in the transfer portal, attend functions that Bryan Harsin blew off, etc. It’s understandable why Freeze felt that heading into Year 1, he needed to focus on his role as Auburn CEO.

It’s also understandable why Freeze cringed watching his 2023 offense without total control of it. In FBS, it ranked:

  • No. 72 in scoring
  • No. 79 in yards/play
  • No. 90 in QB rating
  • No. 94 in 20-yard scrimmage plays
  • No. 105 in 20-yard passing plays
  • No. 106 in sacks allowed
  • No. 117 in 3rd-down conversion percentage
  • No. 124 in passing

It was bad. It was even worse when you realize that the Tigers were held to 24 points or less in 7 of their 10 Power 5 matchups.

As early as late-September, Freeze admitted that he was struggling with not being his team’s primary play-caller. That’s what he had been during his time as a head coach at 3 other FBS programs.

Freeze knew that the strength of Auburn’s 2023 offense was similar to what we saw at the end of 2022 — ground-and-pound. But that’s not the identity Freeze wanted to establish. Auburn’s passing game was so poor that it only averaged 24.4 pass attempts/game.

Before 2023, only 1 of Freeze’s 10 offenses averaged less than 29 pass attempts/game, and it was 2020 Liberty. If you recall, that was led by former Auburn transfer and first-year starter Malik Willis, who eventually blossomed into one of the top quarterback prospects of the 2022 NFL Draft class. In 2020, Willis was still raw as a passer, but the quarterback run game fueled the No. 9 rushing attack in FBS. It helped the Flames earn their first AP Top 25 finish since making the jump to FBS in 2018.

I had hoped that Freeze would give Robby Ashford would get the Willis treatment from Freeze. While there was an attempt to make Ashford a fixture of the offense with the 2-quarterback system in the first part of the season, it didn’t work out. Ashford hit the portal. Maybe the difference was that Willis was forced to redshirt in his first year at Liberty while Ashford was being asked to learn on the fly.

Payton Thorne has the clearest path to be Auburn’s starter, though much like Freeze’s 180 on the play-calling, he did a 180 after the woeful bowl game performance. It’s a “wide-open” competition, he said. That’s what happens when the top 2 guys on the bowl game depth chart complete 42% of their passes for 2.8 yards/attempt with 2 interceptions and the QB4 from the regular season provides the lone spark of the day.

Whether the wide-open competition will include a portal addition remains to be seen. We know that the market thinned out significantly. If Freeze is hoping to find his next starter in the post-spring portal as he did with Thorne, that’s a mistake that play-calling won’t fix. The path for a post-spring quarterback to have immediate success is relatively unproven. Even Joe Burrow had a slow start as a post-spring transfer at LSU in 2018.

Freeze has to go in a clear direction in Year 2. And sorry, but if that direction includes Thorne, it’ll take a whole lot more than Freeze’s play-calling and the arrival of stud true freshman receivers for the offense to pop in 2024.

Interestingly, Freeze’s move happened at a time when more and more head coaches are getting away from those duties. A year removed from Eli Drinkwitz and Jimbo Fisher both stripping themselves of play-calling duties and finding success — A&M’s offense improved by 11 points per game — we’re seeing Freeze go in the opposite direction to find a spark. He didn’t find success following the Lane Kiffin-Josh Heupel approach with an alternative offensive play-caller.

There’s a certain association that many have with a head coach shifting offensive play-calling duties — that they’re fighting for their job. I don’t believe Freeze sees it that way, and I’m not even sure I do. But is he well aware that his predecessor didn’t make it to the end of Year 2? Absolutely. Freeze has been around long enough to know that at best, consecutive disappointing seasons in the SEC will put you on the hot seat. At worst, that can get you fired.

Plus, it’s Auburn. It was crazy enough to pay Malzahn a then-record-setting $21.5 million buyout.

Freeze’s move is a sign that the honeymoon phase is over. Getting Auburn’s offense back to elite status would be no small feat. The last time the Tigers had a top-20 scoring offense was 2013, AKA Year 1 of the Malzahn era. That magical year, wherein Malzahn was the primary play-caller, didn’t guarantee anything beyond 2013. Freeze’s move — even if it yields significant improvement — won’t guarantee anything, either.

Well, it certainly guarantees intrigue.