Hugh Freeze on preparing for Maryland, relationship with Locksley, Auburn's opt outs
- Ahmed Ghafir
- Dec 17, 2023
- 5 min read
In the midst of the sprint to the early signing period, both Auburn and Maryland are in the swing of bowl practices ahead of the Music City Bowl in Nashville on Dec. 30, set for a 2 PM EST kickoff. While it’ll be the first matchup between the two Under Armour programs in 40 years, head coaches Mike Locksley and Hugh Freeze are plenty familiar with each other having overlapped on the Alabama coaching staff. “I know coach Locksley fairly well. In the two years I took off, I spent some time there with him when he was up the road at Alabama and a very, very, very good football coach and will be a great challenge for us in the Music City Bowl. So we're excited to get started,” Freeze said during Saturday’s press conference. “We're playing a very good opponent. You watch them play the upper echelon in their conference and it was impressive, particularly the Michigan game and the things they did in that game to have a chance to win it, truthfully. I think their quarterback is maybe the leading pastor in Big Ten history. They’re very efficient. Run the screen game a bit more than we've seen. We'll have to tackle extremely well against them. Very athletic and defensively, they’re very physical. So it's going to be a great challenge.” Maryland cornerback Tarheeb Still is the lone player who declared for the 2024 NFL Draft while public opt-opts have yet to surface ahead of Tuesday’s media day in College Park. The same can’t be said for Auburn after starting cornerbacks DJ James and Nehemiah Pritchett, along with defensive lineman Marcus Harris, have all opted out against Maryland. The Tigers’ secondary got a big boost with cornerback Keionte Scott announcing his return for 2024, while star safety Jaylin Simpson is nursing a hamstring injury heading into the game but Freeze added “he has intentions to play." Defensive back Kayin Lee appeared in all 12 games in 2023, but he’s the lone experienced option that Auburn will turn to as Freeze looks ahead to his younger cornerbacks to fill the void. “JD Rhym and Colton Hood and Tyler Scott. And Kayin Lee will probably get most of those reps, maybe Hart to get a few too. But all of them going to get some reps, but I would think that those four probably get most of the reps in the bowl practices.” “I just told these young guys, they’re going to get thrown in there and it'll be fun to watch them. Truthfully I hope to play, well, you're going to get those young corners and for sure. Be good to see how they prepare for a game and then go play a very talented football team. Up front, we are a little fin now for sure with Mosiah being out. And then Marcus is choosing not to play in. So this next man up. We got to get some of these young guys in there. Some Reeds and throw them in there and see how they do.” While Freeze expressed confidence in QB Payton Thorne’s chances of developing into 2024, Auburn will also turn to several underclassmen to make plays in the receiving game. “We'll be in 12 personnel some which helps, but I think Jay Fairs is going to get better. I do. I think Camden Brown is going to get better and hopefully Shane and Nick and those guys that are staying with us, man, it'd be nothing better. I'd have no greater joy than to see them have success. And Koy . And we've got to be careful how we practice, their legs could get tired because we are fairly thin there. You might even see a Kassidy jump out there some. That would be very gratifying for me to see some of those guys get those opportunities. But we'll manage the prep on them for sure, but I do expect them to get better. That's what these practices are for.” More from Freeze on QB Payton Thorne and his assessment of the quarterback room. On Auburn’s portal QB pursuit and QB Payton Thorne “I'm just going to be really blunt. I think the cool thing it seems in most people's eyes right now, the cool thing is as soon as a quarterback hits the portal, man, I'm immediately getting hit, ‘this is your guy. Throw the bag at him,’ you know what I mean? I'm like, have y'all watched the film? Or how many games has he won? Ultimately that's what a quarterback is judged on is, is how many games he wins and that just seems to be the cool thing to do. And maybe they're right. I don’t know. Truthfully, we evaluate and watch every single quarterback slash lineman slash receiver that goes in the portal and we try to evaluate is this the best thing for our football team, and truthfully I don't know if you know this, but we have one of the top returning quarterbacks in Power Five with wins in Payton Thorne. I believe that if we get the right pieces around him, Colvin and <2024 four-star qb> Walker and Hank , I think our quarterback room is going to be fine next year. And that is my belief. It is what drives me to get the right pieces around them. I thought he showed once we settled in offensively, what he could do. And again, if you look when he had two NFL receivers in the two kids at Michigan state, the guy threw for 6,700 yards. I think he can do just fine. I haven't found a guy yet.” “And number one, if you go take one, you're probably going to lose Payton, Colvin. You better be right. And I'm just, I believe in Payton, I believe in Colvin. I believe in Hank, and I believe in the kid we've got coming. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but that's, that's my belief. Looking forward to getting better pieces in our offense and him improving. I don't know in year one of the transfer quarterback world, who set the woods on fire? Go look at that and find out.” On QB Payton Thorne’s development “The second half of the season, as we got a little better at receiver and we got more comfortable maybe doing the things that we're going to try to do moving forward, I just thought I saw him continue to get better and his IQ for the game, his competitiveness, his toughness that showed, I think in the Alabama game in particular, I think he's got the ability to be a dual threat guy that has great understanding of what we're trying to do. And if you get the right pieces all around him, I think he's going to be dang pretty efficient. If you look at the PFF stats toward the last half of the season, I mean, his was pretty dang good. I'm concentrating on using our resources and time to try to build all the other pieces first and then let's go see how these quarterbacks’ performance in spring practice.” Related Links
