Every Tuesday we present “The Auburn Corner” featuring a breakdown of the previous game, a preview of the upcoming game, and everything in between.
Last Saturday, Auburn was overmatched in Baton Rouge and dropped their third straight. Did expectations get too high for the Tigers this offseason?
You can understand why there was so much excitement around the Auburn program in year one of the Hugh Freeze era. After the dark days that were the past two seasons under Bryan Harsin, Freeze built some serious momentum on the recruiting trail on The Plains.
Couple this with the fact that Freeze brought in a quarterback via the transfer portal in Payton Thorne. Coming from Michigan State, he had shown the ability to perform against high-level competition and you can understand why the excitement built.
In fact, for the first time in program history, all season ticket packages were sold out before the season opener.
Make no mistake. Nobody, not even the biggest of Auburn fans thought the Tigers were going to be serious competitors in the SEC this season.
But the expectations for this team were certainly higher than what the product has been.
Six games in, it would be fair to say that the team that Freeze has put on the field has been a disappointment.
The offense is a complete mess. Freeze insists on using Thorne and Robby Ashford at quarterback and one has to question at this point if he should simply choose one and roll with the decision.
Freeze has already said that we can expect to see both Saturday against Ole Miss, a game where the Tigers are seven-point underdogs at home.
If Freeze is going to insist on doing the same thing with an offense that has for the most part been utterly unproductive, why should we expect anything to change?
Auburn had a nice performance against Georgia, but it was, once again, a game where the passing attack was virtually non-existent.
Surely, the Tigers will attempt to run the ball on Ole Miss. But if the Rebels can get up early, it may be another long day for Auburn.
