The play call sheet will be returned to Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze in 2024, according to ESPN’s Chris Low on Tuesday morning.
The revelation follows Freeze’s decision not to keep offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery, who was the Tigers’ play caller in 2023. According to Low, Freeze “looked at a couple different options” following Montgomery’s firing, but appears to have opted on calling plays himself.
Freeze functioned as his own offensive play-caller throughout his prior head coaching stops at Arkansas State, Ole Miss, and Liberty. When Freeze arrived at Auburn, he elected to delegate those responsibilities to Montgomery.
“I hired Philip to call plays,” Freeze stated on July 18 at SEC Media Days. “I’ve been doing this for years. I used to think I was one of the best play callers in the country. I haven’t felt completely on top of my game, but I could still handle a game and find a way to win.”
That decision came with some trade-offs, as Auburn now has the seventh-ranked recruiting class in the country, according to 247Sports, but will be near the bottom of the barrel in a number of offensive statistics by the end of the 2023 season.
With Montgomery at the helm of Auburn’s offensive in 2023, the Tigers finished 11th in the SEC in scoring offense and 121st in passing offense, with only nine teams in FBS performing worse.
Throughout Auburn’s difficult offensive season, Freeze made it known that he was frustrated by his lack of involvement in play-calling efforts.
“This is new for me,” Freeze said of not calling plays following Auburn’s dreadful performance at Texas A&M. “It’s difficult for me. I’ve told everyone in the building about it.”
After Auburn’s Oct. 21 loss to Ole Miss, in which the Tigers’ offense used the same strange quarterback rotation it had used all season with Payton Thorne and Robby Ashford, Freeze felt compelled to seize control.
“I went in after the Ole Miss game and I said, ‘This is it, this is what we’re doing,”” recalled Freeze. “‘And don’t anybody ask me anything else, because this is what we’re doing.'”
And, based on Tuesday’s announcement, it appears that there will be a lot more of it in the next season.
Meanwhile, with Montgomery gone, Auburn still has an open offensive position.
It looks likely that Freeze would promote current Auburn assistant Kent Austin, who now works as special assistant to the head coach on the Tigers’ staff but has a long history of coaching quarterbacks – a role previously occupied by Montgomery.
However, it is unknown what Freeze and the Tigers will do with the vacated post.
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