Hugh Freeze on New Auburn Tigers QB Jackson Arnold: ‘Very, Very Optimistic’
Payton Thorne under center last season for the Auburn Tigers was rather underwhelming, and that’s being extremely polite. However, the entirety of the blame can’t be laid at the feet of Thorne when head coach Hugh Freeze and his three-headed play-calling monster shoulder some of the fault as well.
So as a direct consequence, Jackson Arnold’s arrival in the transfer portal to assume the controls at quarterback has probably been pretty overplayed, at least in some quarters.
That’s not to say that Arnold didn’t show some enough flashes of pure talent at Oklahoma to suggest that he can indeed turn a losing narrative into a winning one in 2025 for the success starved Tigers.
At least some spring football restores a more optimistic outlook for the ambitious Tigers program, and not least their head coach, Hugh Freeze.
“Very, very optimistic,” Freeze declared about Arnold on Tuesday. “He has a calm demeanor, a confidence. He understands ball, high football IQ, arm strength is good. There’s a reason he was Gatorade Player of the Year coming out of high school.
“I think he needed a start to regain some confidence, and I think he’s doing that in a fast, fast pace. Decision making has been on point. We’ll watch today’s film, I don’t know about it, but in the previous three days – again, he didn’t have pads on – there’s been very, very few decisions that were the wrong ones.
“I think he is throwing a very accurate ball. Really impressed by his pocket presence when the traffic is around him, where his eyes are. They stay down field, and he uses his legs when he needs to. I’m really excited and impressed truthfully both with him and Deuce (Knight).”
Turning Arnold back around is going to be as much about restoring his levels of confidence, so the early stages of getting him back in the groove cannot be understated.
Freeze quickly made his own eye test assessment that Arnold showed some real confidence and a calm demeanor, and that is going to be music to the ears of many, as will his levels of accuracy.
Ever since the Freeze recruitment machine successfully landed one of the top rated high school quarterback recruits in Deuce Knight – you most certainly got the distinct impression that the program was going to take their time developing him, but not hold him back.
Of course, Arnold still has two years still remaining of his own eligibility, so how quickly they happen to develop Knight, at least on paper, will be firmly in their own hands.
Thankfully, the early returns have been good, and Knight’s thirst to gain boat loads of football knowledge which made him really stand out from other potential recruits has really shown up already.
“Deuce’s maturity is way farther along than what I even knew, and he is hungry to learn and always asking questions,” Freeze explained. “Always wanting to talk about ‘how do I improve this and that.’ An extremely hard worker that you have to run off the field from trying to throw too much, They’re getting a lot of throws because there’s only two of them right now. I’m really pleased by both of those guys right now.”
We’re only in the mere infancy of the bigger ongoing quarterback process, and yes it will get progressively more complex, but long may the positive vibes radiate down on the Plains.
