Hugh Freeze rethinking decision to trim QB battle following scrimmage
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Hugh Freeze has a quarterback battle on his hands at Auburn, and he touched on that group after Saturday’s scrimmage.
Speaking with the media, Freeze indicated he was prepared to make a decision on trimming that battle Friday. However, the performance of the players in Saturday’s scrimmage has him rethinking that decision.
“Yesterday, I had my mind made up,” Freeze said. “And after today, I need to watch the film before I say.”
The 3 QBs to see snaps in Saturday’s scrimmage were Robby Ashford, Payton Thorne and Holden Geriner. Ashford is the team’s top returning QB while Thorne stepped into the program after two seasons as the starter at Michigan State. Geriner saw very limited action as a true freshman in 2022.
Freeze particularly noted a need to “take care of the ball” and “playing in the right space on given plays” as points of emphasis. Fortunately, he felt “all three did that fairly well today.”
He pointed out all three did not turn the ball over on Saturday:
“They all… they did not turn the ball over,” said Freeze. “That’s priority number one in offensive football, so that was good.”
While the QBs looked good in the scrimmage, the same could not be said for Auburn’s receivers. Freeze pointed out “too many opportunities” of QBs making the right reads in the RPO game with receivers “loafing” or not on the same page as the QB.
“We had some guy who had some good catches today, but we had way too many opportunities in the RPO game that the quarterback made the right decision to throw the ball and a receiver is… he’s either loafing, which we can’t have, or he chose to run the wrong route,” Freeze explained. “And you’ve got to look at us coaches first on that and be sure to get that cleaned up. But this week, I thought we took a step forward in the totality of that room.”
At the end of the day, Auburn’s still searching for a starting QB, but all signs from Saturday’s scrimmage sound positive per Freeze. We’ll see if one player can create some separation and nail down the job in the weeks to come.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
