Hugh Freeze clarifies division of labor on Auburn offense

After Auburn offensive coordinator Derrick Nix caused a stir by getting out a verbal flow chart to describe the Tigers' play-calling process this fall under Hugh Freeze, the head man spoke to the media on Thursday to clear things up.

Nix is the offensive coordinator and sets the game-plan, with quarterbacks coach Kent Austin responsible for the third down package. Freeze defended his right to overrule any call at any time as the head coach. 

"I'll go over on defense and do the same thing there," Freeze said. "I don't tell DJ (Durkin) a whole lot but there's times I can see what I think the offense is doing and I'll say, 'Hey, I think we need to Cloud this.' While I'm doing that, the offensive guys, led by Nix, are talking about the next series and what they think we should do. Usually there's a darn TV timeout or something so I'll have time to get back on there and say, 'All right, what are y'all thinking? Yes, I like all of that.'"

None of that is totally abnormal. If he's not calling plays, it's his job to quality control and manage the game. He's the head of the body, the only one fully aware what both the left and the right hand are doing. If Auburn leads 21-20 with three minutes left, its quarterback has thrown three interceptions and the top three defensive tackles have been lost to injury, Freeze isn't doing his job if the offensive staff wants to open its next series with Four Verts. 

The question I had was one of trust, and where the buck stops. It's a question I still have after hearing Freeze speak. 

"It's both of us. We both have the ability to do that," Freeze said on who speaks to quarterback Jackson Arnold through the headset speaker. "Usually the call comes through me and I'll say, 'Yeah, that's what we're doing,' or I'll say, 'You've got it right now' and I'll try to keep my mouth shut. Unless I see a check or something that I know we should go to."

So, they both call the play, unless it's Freeze, or unless it's Nix. 

Again, we're all dealing with shades of gray here. I'm not aware of any staff in the country where one coach does 100 percent of the intellectual heavy lifting on one side of the ball. But I think all this boils down to two thoughts:

1) Either Freeze trusts Nix, Austin and the staff to call the plays, or he doesn't.
2) When it's 3rd-and-5 in the Iron Bowl, is Nix going to call the play he wants to call, or call the play he thinks Freeze wants him to call?

And while we're on the subject, this clip went viral on Thursday.

It's one play of one practice, but it's a reminder of why Arnold is at Auburn in the first place, and how much Freeze has staked on him. Last season at Oklahoma, Arnold often operated in two modes: indecision or bad decision. Though he only tossed three interceptions in 246 pass attempts, he lost eight fumbles and was sacked 34 times in 10 games. 

“When we have the right thing called, the expectation, and I think it’s a reasonable one, is we execute it,” Freeze said, via Auburn Sports.“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. It’s hard enough to score in this league and in any game really, but when you finally have one that’s called right, you want to see us execute it. And that’s the frustration.”

The bottom line for Auburn this fall is that Jackson Arnold has to be good, and to be good he needs clear and concise coaching, in whatever form Freeze delivers it to him.