1.1.24 Football Articles

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247sports.com

 

McGriff expected to make a move to Texas AM

Jason Caldwell

14–17 minutes

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Auburn assis.tant Wesley McGriff expected to move to Texas A&M.

After moving off the field in October, Auburn assistant coach Wesley McGriff appears to be on the move again with Matt Zenitz from 247Sports reporting a move to Texas A&M for the veteran assistant coach. Following his third stint on the Plains with the Tigers, McGriff looks to be joining Mike Elko's staff in College Station as he takes over for the departed Jimbo Fisher.

Coaching at Auburn twice under Gus Malzahn and most recently at Louisville, McGriff has also spent time at Ole Miss, Miami and other places during his career. Working alongside Zac Etheridge in the Auburn secondary since his hire last December, McGriff's move opens the door for Auburn to bring on another veteran assistant, Charles Kelly.

In a move that was mentioned on Saturday but still hasn't been confirmed by Auburn, coach Hugh Freeze is expected to hire Kelly to coach the secondary in addition to having the role of co-coordinator with Ron Roberts.

A former walk-on at Auburn and longtime coordinator in college, Kelly was at Colorado this past season and has also spent time at Alabama, Florida State and other schools.

'Hopefully he'll get a shot:' Auburn freshman QB Hank Brown impresses late in bowl loss

'Hank has incredible poise. I saw it every day when he was running the scout team, and he has very little protection and he stands in there and makes throw after throw after throw.'

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — The cliche that the backup quarterback is the most popular player on the team was certainly true for Auburn on Saturday.

Only for the Tigers — late in their uncompetitive loss to Maryland, 31-13 in the Music City Bowl — it was the backup to the backup.

After Payton Thorne and Holden Geriner both struggled to get anything going against the Terrapins through the air, combining to complete 14-of-33 passes with two interceptions, Hugh Freeze let true freshman Hank Brown get his first career snaps late in the game.

It only took four attempts for Brown to become Auburn’s top passer on the day.

“It was great to see today,” Thorne said of Brown. “Hank is a good friend of mine. I’m a big fan of Hank. He’s worked really hard since he’s been here, and that was cool to see him go down the field today.”

After Geriner’s interception on fourth down in Maryland territory, Freeze handed things over to Brown with 7:51 remaining. He immediately led Auburn on a touchdown drive that took 58 seconds. Brown made a quick throw to Camden Brown for a first down, then loaded up and hit Caleb Burton for 53 yards down to Maryland’s 1-yard line. Freshman running back Jeremiah Cobb immediately punched it in.

The deep shot to Burton tied Auburn’s longest passing play of the season.

The 6-foot-4, 200-pound true freshman connected on his first seven passes, including five straight on the next drive to get Auburn back into the red zone again. He threw incomplete to Shane Hooks on fourth down, but Freeze said Brown made the right read and that Hooks didn’t complete the route properly.

Finishing 7-of-9 passing for 132 yards, Brown didn’t appear to have much hesitation slinging the ball around as soon as he checked in, and Freeze attributed a lot of that to the fact that he’s run Auburn’s scout-team offense all season, and his job is sometimes to make things difficult for the Tigers’ starting defense. He almost expected the pressure to come right away, and knew he had to be decisive and get the ball out quickly.

“Hank has incredible poise,” Freeze said. “I saw it every day when he was running the scout team, and he has very little protection and he stands in there and makes throw after throw after throw. I think he has incredible poise for a freshman for sure. He has great humility. Wants to be taught. Wants to learn. Has a good IQ for the game. Understands timing.”

It was a special couple series for Brown, a Nashville native who threw 47 touchdowns last season and won a state title at Lipscomb Academy just a few miles down the road, playing for Trent Dilfer.

“He’ll know that offense as well as any person in that building after a couple months there,” Dilfer, now UAB’s head coach, told Auburn Undercover in May. “He’ll do the lonely work — the stuff that doesn’t get celebrated, so that he’s prepared. … He has all the skills it takes to become an NFL quarterback. I told him right before his senior year that if he continued to progress on the track we’re progressing him on, he’ll get drafted.”

It was obviously a small sample size — late in a game that was already decided, against a Maryland defense that had already started celebrating — and Brown wasn’t necessarily running Auburn’s base scheme, simply dropping back and making a couple quick reads and rifling the ball. But there can’t be an argument made against the fact that the Tigers were much more explosive and efficient moving the football than any other point in the game.

The true freshman had been an afterthought when discussing Auburn’s quarterback job for 2024. But after he generated some buzz for himself heading into the offseason — and Freeze called the quarterback spot “wide open” for next season — Brown’s name is certainly one that Auburn fans will continue to circle back to as an intriguing contender in the room moving forward.

“I like the way he plays,” tight end Rivaldo Fairweather said. “He's really calm and composed and he's just a good kid, man. You’ve just got to keep going and keep playing hard, and hopefully he'll get a shot.”

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collegefootballnews.com

Maryland vs Auburn: TransPerfect Music City Bowl Recap, Final Score, What Happened, What It All Means

Pete Fiutak

3–4 minutes

Maryland beat Auburn 31-13 to win the TransPerfect Music City Bowl. What happened, who was the player of the game, and what does it all mean?

Dec 30, 2023; Nashville, TN, USA; The Maryland Terrapins band chants before the game against the Auburn Tigers at Nissan Stadium.

© Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

TransPerfect Music City Bowl Recap: Maryland 31, Auburn 13

Pete Fiutak on X | CFN on X
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Pete Fiutak on Threads | CFN on Threads

TransPerfect Music City Bowl What Happened

- Maryland wasn’t exactly Maryland offensively without QB Taulia Tagovailoa, but Billy Edwards ran for a touchdown on the team’s first drive, hit Preston Howard for a five-yard score on the second drive, and the defense did the rest.

- Maryland mixed it up on its third score with a thee-yard pass from Cameron Edge to Dylan Wade - for a 21-0 lead. Auburn finally got on the board with a good second quarter drive finishing with a three-yard Brandon Frazier touchdown catch, but …

- The Terp D didn’t allow another Tiger score until the outcome was well in hand, Glendon Miller returned a pick for a touchdown, and in all it came up with four takeaways.

TransPerfect Music City Bowl Player of the Game

Billy Edwards Jr., QB Maryland
He only completed 6-of-20 passes, but they went for 126 yards and a touchdown with no picks, and he came up with a game-leading 50 rushing yards and a score.

Recommended for You

TransPerfect Music City Bowl What It All Means

- Mike Locksley now has three straight bowl wins and two straight eight-win seasons. Not since Ralph Friedgen won 31 games in three seasons from 2021 to 2023 has the program enjoyed this kind of success, and it happened without Taulia Tagovailoa and a slew of other key parts.

- It’s just a bowl game, but considering how painful the loss to Alabama was, this would’ve been a nice way for Auburn to close out the first year under Hugh Freeze on a high note. Instead it’s a third straight year without a winning campaign - 1975 to 1977 was the last time that happened - and there’s only been one bowl win since the 2014 season.

- The Auburn offense has to start working better next season. The turnovers in this were one thing, but the total inability to crank out any rushing yards on a consistent basis was the bigger issue. The Maryland defense is good, but the Tigers needed to come up with more than 2.2 yards per carry and couldn’t find any room.

- Experts Picks For Every Bowl

TransPerfect Music City Bowl Key Stats

- Total Offense: Maryland 310, Auburn 300

- Yards Per Catch: Maryland 20.8, Auburn 10.7

- Auburn’s Hank Brown came up with a team-high 132 passing yards on a 7-of-9 game.

Bowl Recaps, Schedule, Predictions

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Young Auburn defense shows promise in loss to Maryland

Auburn's defense played strong after a rough start in the Music City Bowl.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee—For the first 12 minutes of Saturday’s Music City Bowl, the Auburn defense made the Maryland offense look like the second coming of the 2005 USC Trojans. In three possessions, the Terps went 75, 75 and 76 yards in three touchdown drives to take a commanding 21-0 lead. Even though the Tigers were never able to get competitive in the 31-13 loss, coach Ron Roberts and a defense filled with a bunch of inexperienced faces showed glimpses of some very positive things to build on heading into the 2024 season.

Defensively we played really well defensively the second half, but it goes back to that standard,” Freeze said. “It's not okay just to play really well and you do your assignment for a half.”

Auburn veteran linebacker Eugene Asante agrees with his head coach, saying sometimes it’s on the player to go out and get the job done.

“There are so many things that go into it,” Asante said. “You can say ‘did they start slow?’ I think so much of it was that we’re in position to make those plays and we have to make those plays. That starts with myself. I have to look myself in the mirror and work on what I have to improve. It’s something we’ll look at and try to improve upon heading into next season.”

Once Auburn settled into the game, the Auburn defense dominated Maryland the rest of the way. After racking up 226 yards on 19 plays to open the game, Maryland’s offense had just 84 yards on 39 plays in the final three quarters. On the field for a lot of that action were guys like Keldric Faulk and Bobby Jamison-Travis up front and Colton Hood, Kayin Lee, Terrance Love and Sylvester Smith in the secondary.

With other young guys like Darron Reed up front and Tyler Scottalong with JC Hart in the secondary, there’s a strong base to build around for the Tigers. During bowl practices they also had the chance to see incoming freshmen Malik Blocton on the defensive line, linebackers DJ Barber, Joseph Phillips and Demarcus Riddick, and Kaleb Harrisin the secondary.

After seeing those guys up close and in person throughout the bowl practices in Nashville, Asante believes the future is bright for this Auburn defense.

“We’ve got so many young, talented guys coming in,” Asante said. “I have to understand that I have guys that depend on me, lean on me. I’m trying to develop those leadership skills and communicate with guys and allow them to flourish because I see a lot of great things in them. Coach Freeze did a great job of recruiting and we have to bring those guys up to speed. We’re going to need those guys. For myself, I just want to continue to help this team be the team it can be. I know it can be a special team.”

When the dust had settled, Auburn fell to end the season, but for a young defense there were some things to build on. Faulk said now it’s time to do just that.

“I mean, it shows that we’re resilient,” he said of the way they responded. “We’re not going to back down from nobody. We’ve been faced with too many challenges throughout this season to back down now. The second that we do, we’re not Auburn’s defense anymore. I feel like at first we weren’t playing like an Auburn defense, then the last three quarters we’re rolling on all cylinders. We were stopping them on third and fourth down like an Auburn defense should. We showed little glimpses of really great defense. I think we showed glimpses of really bad defense. That’s for us to go watch the film and really correct everything that we see on the film.”

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saturdaydownsouth.com

 

3 takeaways from Auburn’s dreadful Music City Bowl loss to Maryland

Keith Farner | 2 days ago

3–4 minutes

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Auburn is trying to build momentum for Hugh Freeze’s second season at Auburn, but the Music City Bowl proved to be a significant speed bump.

The Tigers never seemed to be in control, and after Maryland built a 3-touchdown lead, the Terrapins coasted to victory over Auburn, 31-13.

Maryland quarterback Billy Edwards Jr., who played in place of Taulia Tagovailoa, had a rushing touchdown and a passing touchdown in the game to help Maryland build a big lead. Hugh Freeze in recent days shared concerns about Auburn’s tackling, and that was very much the case, especially early on.

Here are our 3 takeaways from the game:

Rough start

Rough starts have been a theme lately, and it happened again in Nashville. Auburn has gone 3-and-out on its first possession in 3 straight games. It has also allowed the opponent to score an opening-drive touchdown in 3 straight games. Not only that, but Maryland’s 21 points scored in the first quarter were the most Auburn has allowed in an opening quarter since 2014.

It took a while for Auburn to find some traction on defense. It finally forced Maryland to punt for the first time in this game midway through the second quarter trailing 21-0.

Forgettable 2nd half

As if the 1st half wasn’t enough, Auburn and Maryland went through a slog in the 3rd quarter alone. Auburn and Maryland combined for 33 total yards on 29 combined plays. Auburn mustered just 16 yards and was 1-for-4 on 3rd down conversions, and made 2 turnovers.

Then, after Holden Geriner came in to a big ovation, the Auburn QB began 1-for-6 for 8 yards and an interception. That summarized the offensive effort for much of the game, as Auburn didn’t get any movement along the offensive line, and receivers didn’t get open down the field.

Defense was the silver lining

The terrible start was one thing, but at least the Auburn defense showed some fight the rest of the game.

Maryland started the game with 3 drives that went for 19 plays for 226 yards and 3 TDs. But after that, the Terrapins were limited on their next 3 drives to 18 plays for 49 yards and a field goal.

If not the defense, Hank Brown, who was the 3rd Auburn QB to enter the game, began the game 7-for-7 as he engineered an effective drive that drove Auburn to the Maryland 15-yard line.

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Keith Farner

A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South. Follow on Twitter.

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al.com

 

So is Hank Brown really going to be a factor in Auburn’s upcoming quarterback competition?

Published: Jan. 01, 2024, 7:02 a.m.

5–7 minutes

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"I don't need someone to tell me I didn't get it done" says Hugh Freeze after Maryland pounds Auburn

The game’s result was already far from in question when a white jersey with a navy blue No. 15 sewn on jogged between the lines at Nissan Stadium. His first snap Saturday was the first of his college career, and all done so in his hometown.

Yet freshman quarterback and Nashville native Hank Brown came out slinging as if his team didn’t trail by a massive margin, as if he wasn’t in the lights of an NFL stadium and as if the moment of his first-ever playing time wasn’t any bit too big for him. On the second career pass attempt of his career, Brown flicked one of the best deep balls thrown by any Auburn quarterback this season — hitting wide receiver Caleb Burton in stride for a 53-yard gain which set up a touchdown.

Auburn was losing 31-7 when Brown entered the game in an eventual 31-13 loss.

But the two quarterbacks ahead of him on Auburn’s depth chart — Payton Thorne and Holden Geriner — both struggled mightily against Maryland. Thorne was 13-27 for 84 yards and Geriner was 1-6 for eight yards. Both Thorne and Geriner threw interceptions. If not for a penalty calling it off, Thorne would have thrown a second interception.

Only one quarterback gave Auburn any sort of a spark in the Music City Bowl. And albeit it coming late in the game with a slew of backups around him, that player was Hank Brown.

After the loss, head coach Hugh Freeze said Auburn’s starting quarterback position would be “wide-open” heading into 2024. That comment came hardly two weeks after he seemingly committed to Thorne as his starter going into next season.

Yet after just one short flash of excellence, could Brown factor into that competition?

While he may not be likely to win the job, being a name in the rotation for snaps in upcoming spring ball and fall camp practices is not far-fetched.

“But Hank is just, I like the way he plays,” tight end Rivaldo Fairweather said after the Music City Bowl. “He’s really calm and composed and he’s just a good kid, man. You just got to keep going and keep playing hard and hopefully, he’ll get a shot.”

Brown spent the 2023 regular season essentially fourth in line behind Thorne, Robby Ashford and Geriner. Thorne and Geriner will both be back next year. Ashford entered the transfer portal. Auburn will also be adding four-star signee Walker White to the room.

Freeze’s initial assertion when backing Thorne was a belief that if he could put the pieces in around the Michigan State transfer, then Thorne’s play would improve as a result. What Freeze realized Saturday is that the incoming wide receiver class with two five-star and two four-star recruits will not be enough by itself to fix the quarterback play.

Yet when Freeze mentioned getting the right talent around Thorne, Brown’s name came up there too.

“I believe that if we get the right pieces around him and Holden and Hank, I think our quarterback room is going to be fine next year,” Freeze said as Auburn opened practices for the Music City Bowl on Dec. 16. “I believe in Payton. I believe in Holden. I believe in Hank. I believe in (White). If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but that’s my belief.”

In fact, Brown’s name has always hovered around the quarterback battle even going all the way back to SEC Media Days in July.

“Hank Brown, I love,” Freeze said in July of whittling down his fall camp quarterback competition. “He can make every throw. But realistically you can’t get four kids reps in camp.”

Brown has been one of Freeze’s longest-tenured quarterback selections on the current roster. Brown — a three-star high school recruit from the nationally regarded Lipscomb Academy team in Nashville, Tennessee — originally committed to Freeze while he was still the head coach at Liberty. When Freeze left Liberty for Auburn, Brown de-committed. Newly appointed Auburn offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery recruited Brown to follow Freeze to Auburn and in December 2022, Brown signed his letter of intent for the Tigers.

Brown and White are Auburn’s only two quarterback signees out of high school under Freeze.

Thorne was a quarterback picked out by Freeze, but one taken late out of the transfer portal after spring practices had already ended. From a pure development standpoint, Brown and White are far more tied than Freeze than Thorne — albeit Freeze has on multiple occasions been willing to put his full stance behind his transfer quarterback.

It still does not appear as if Auburn will change course and add another transfer quarterback. Maybe Brown’s flash of potential alleviates a concern over depth following Ashford’s departure.

Freeze brought Brown along to Auburn for a reason. Whether he’s the answer at quarterback is another question. But will he get a shot?

Yeah, seems like it.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

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al.com

After another dismal game from Auburn’s offense, where does the blame go now?

Published: Dec. 30, 2023, 7:13 p.m.

5–7 minutes

Auburn fans frustrated after tough loss to Maryland in Music City Bowl

Why Auburn has found itself unable to maintain consistency this season may trace its way back to an offensive coaches’ meeting room that has appeared to be a brain trust with differing means to achieve their ends.

And after a 31-13 loss to Maryland in the Music City Bowl to close out a 6-7 season, that starts with head coach Hugh Freeze and his inconsistent involvement. That see-saw began before the 2023 season with Freeze giving primary play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery and significant struggles of the offense that followed. After Auburn lost to Ole Miss in October, seven games into the season, Freeze claims he “put his foot down” and took more involvement in offensive planning. That seemed to be what was credited for a turnaround during Auburn’s three-game SEC winning streak late in the year.

Freeze commented at points this season on how the coaches he hired would allow him to focus on recruiting. But he had to step back on that plan to help with the offense. During the regular season when Freeze was asked about the well-done job of defensive coordinator Ron Roberts, Freeze said he likes to step out of his assistant’s way until they prove they can’t do the job. At that point in the year, Freeze had already stated how he’d stepped in more with the offense.

The history made Freeze’s comments about what he described as a poor offensive game plan against Maryland, especially fascinating.

“Well, obviously I don’t feel like it was an effective one,” Freeze said after the Music City Bowl loss. “I didn’t get too involved in it for most of the part until this week because of recruiting, and really wanted to kind of evaluate everything about our program.”

Based on Freeze’s comments throughout the season, it would be fair to assume the offense was good when Freeze was heavily involved in preparation, and bad when he wasn’t. Whether that’s the full story is unclear.

“I think honestly he’s always been a part of it,” Montgomery said Friday before the Music City Bowl. “We went into this with that mindset. He’s always had influence on it from fall camp to now and will continue to do that. We went into this with our eyes wide open with the honest approach of trying to put the best thing on the field for our players and giving them the best opportunity to go win.”

Freeze was willing to take blame on himself after the loss, saying the criticism should start with him as the head coach. But statements that he wasn’t heavily involved with the plan until after the Dec. 20-22 early signing period and then saying it was not a good plan instead is passing blame around the staff.

The main complaint Freeze had centered on not running the ball well. Auburn only had 76 rushing yards and averaged 2.2 yards per carry. Freeze’s blame there went not to the players’ execution but more to the schemes Auburn used.

“We have to go look at the run schemes that we had, and did we not play hard up front,” Freeze said. “It’s really hard for me to tell. But they really dominated the line of scrimmage against us. They did load the box now.”

That inability to run the ball plus a three-score deficit in the game’s first quarter meant Auburn essentially had to rely on its passing game — which has been among the 10 worst in the nation this season by yards per game. Both Payton Thorne and Holden Geriner struggled mightily. Thorne completed only 13 passes out of 27 for 84 yards. Geriner only completed one pass. Third-string quarterback Hank Brown was the only productive passer.

The blame could go on the offensive line’s poor blocking. It could go on the schemes Freeze mentioned. It could go on ineffective quarterback play from Thorne that led Freeze to backtrack on his previous vote of confidence in his starting quarterback. It could go on a group of pass catchers that have failed to create separation or any form of dynamic contributions throughout the 2023 season.

The continually spreading blame surrounding the team’s inconsistency leaves Auburn further emphasizing questions it seemed to believe it had solved.

Freeze’s evaluations going into 2024 will focus on a quarterback position that could have a competition he wasn’t previously expecting. And it could take a reflection on an offensive staff that Freeze on multiple occasions, including Saturday, has suggested did not get the job done as needed. Or at least not done his way.

“I’m constantly evaluating players, staff, everything, and if we see that my evaluation has been wrong, then we have to change gears and reevaluate to make us better, then that’s the steps we should make,” Freeze said. “That position should be an interesting one certainly in spring practice.”

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

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[SaltyTiger 7,808]

Happy New Year from the Plains Fiddy. Thanks and looking forward to a big Auburn 2024. Countdown to baseball begins today.

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Just now, SaltyTiger said:

Happy New Year from the Plains Fiddy. Thanks and looking forward to a big Auburn 2024. Countdown to baseball begins today.

i try to throw some baseball stuff out but i do not want to overwhelm myself. i have a timer so it will not let me post faster. actually i imagine we all do............happy new year back to you. i spent my night calming my dogs.it got bad.................

[SaltyTiger 7,808]

42 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

i try to throw some baseball stuff out but i do not want to overwhelm myself. i have a timer so it will not let me post faster. actually i imagine we all do............happy new year back to you. i spent my night calming my dogs.it got bad.................

Mrs Salty says we had a few fireworks here. I slept through them & never heard a thing.