Hugh Freeze addresses camp frustration with Jackson Arnold
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Hugh Freeze is hoping that Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold is the answer to Auburn‘s struggles at quarterback over the past few years.
If an exchange between Freeze and Arnold during practice on Thursday is anything to go by, though, it might be tough sledding on The Plains once more. A video that made its rounds on social media showed Freeze yelling at Arnold in frustration during a drill.
“God almighty, man…it ain’t that dang hard,” Freeze can be heard telling Arnold after slamming his visor to the ground.
Freeze was asked by reporters after practice about the moment.
“Did you catch me throwing my visor?” Freeze said. “I’ve gotta calm down sometimes with quarterbacks.”
It was for good reason, though, the third-year Tigers coach noted.
“When we have the right thing called, the expectation, and I think it’s a reasonable one, is we execute it,” he said in a video shared by WSFA-TV sports director Rosie Langello-Hodgens. “Now, if we haven’t coached it well enough when we get in there, maybe that’s the case, I’ll ask the quarterback staff, ‘What did we tell him?’ because we’ve got him wide open and we don’t throw the touchdown, and that’s frustrating as heck.”
Fortunately, it’s practice, and not a live game situation. But it’s still not a great sign this close to the season for a program that’s 11-14 over the past 2 years with back-to-back sub.-500 campaigns.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
