Auburn football endured a brutal Saturday following Oklahoma snatching 10 sacks. Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze watched his team join the wrong side of Sooners history after the loss.
Now Freeze is dishing out blame for the lack of protection for Jackson Arnold.
Where does the blame lie? Freeze bluntly pointed in two areas via Justin Hokanson of On3/Rivals Monday.
“There are five that I don’t think Jackson could do anything about. There are five that I think he’s got to trust our receivers in one-on-ones, we’ll protect him and make a play. I thought it was dead down the middle, 50-50,” Freeze said.
Another words, Arnold holding on to the football earns half the blame. The other came from dismal protection.
Hugh Freeze made strong admission after Auburn vs. Oklahoma
Freeze dropped one more bold statement, which came after the loss to the Sooners. He shared a strong take on how he really felt about Auburn's performance.
“Undisciplined. Bad decisions. Put our offense in bad positions three times,” Freeze said afterwards. “That was disappointing and certainly undisciplined.”
He praised the OU defense, though, and the plan Brent Venables rolled out.
“That’s a really good defense,” Freeze said. “I don’t think rolling out was an option against them, but we have got to strain and get better and get the ball out those times that we did have some shots and some one-on-ones.”
Auburn had multiple chances to tie or even win the game. They even proved to be better than OU in key areas during the game.
The Tigers held the football longer than OU at 11:08 (Auburn finished with a time of possession of 35:34). Auburn even produced more rushing yards compared to OU.
Except Auburn settled for 67 rushing yards and 1.9 yards per carry. Both teams didn't fare much better on third downs either — hitting just three conversions. Though the Tigers had 15 third down tries.
Auburn managed to grab one sack and tally six tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Unfortunately OU compiled 14 tackles for a loss — featuring all those sacks.
