Tate, a summer camp standout at AU, said that Auburn feels like the “right place” after visiting Auburn and other campuses throughout the summer.
Auburn’s offense in Saturday’s 31-13 Music City Bowl loss to Maryland looked much like the offense in Auburn’s midseason four-game losing streak. That made even more sense after head coach Hugh Freeze said he had not been involved in the gameplan until recent days.
I saw it with Gus Malzahn and Chip Lindsey and again with Gus Malzahn and Chad Morris. I have seen it with other coaches in other programs. Rarely can two offensive coaches combine schemes and be successful.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery couldn’t run the offense his way and be successful. It doesn’t mean Freeze couldn’t do the same. But doing it in some sort of combination hasn’t worked.
After that four-game losing streak, Freeze seemed to take over more of the game-planning and more of the play-calling. He did not appear to be calling plays on Saturday.
Freeze said early in the season that he had focused on recruiting. I didn’t believe it would work, and I thought Freeze had come to the same conclusion.
I have no indication at all that there is some kind of friction between Freeze and Montgomery or, for that matter, friction between Freeze and defensive coordinator Ron Roberts. But I believe it has to be one way or the other, that Freeze needs to take full control of the offense or turn it over to Montgomery or someone else.
