Auburn's Hugh Freeze Believes Turnover Plague can be Cured

Constant turnovers have devastated Auburn in both its early season losses. The team’s head coach believes the issue is fixable.

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze wants to steady the ship after two-turnover filled losses in the last three weeks. /

The Auburn Tigers have unexpectedly dropped two games in the early portion of the season to Cal and Arkansas, both losses happening inside Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The Tigers turned the ball over five times against Cal. Payton Thorne threw four interceptions and Jarquez Hunter had a fumble. They gave the ball away five more times against Arkansas, Thorne threw an interception, Hank Brown threw three interceptions and Damari Alston had a fumble. Muffed punts have also occurred.

Auburn has turned the ball over 14 times through four games, tying it with East Carolina for the most in FBS.

Head coach Hugh Freeze addressed the turnover issue once again during the SEC head coaches teleconference and elaborated on what needs to happen to limit them moving forward.

“Our interceptions I think can be corrected with a little more accuracy and maybe decision making,” Freeze said. “Maybe as coaches not carrying as much as we want to carry sometimes. We’ve had two fumbles and eight interceptions, we’ve put it on the gound two more times also fumbling [muffed punts].”

Freeze and company have put more of an emphasis on ball security during their preparation for the Oklahoma game, a decision they hope to see pay immediate dividends.

“We just continue to go with our ball security circuits every single day,” Freeze said. “We continue to put an emphasis on it and call it out on film. We’ll see it in practice. Making the team watch it and knowing that if you get entrusted with the ball that there’s an accountability.”

Despite turnovers being commonplace for the Tigers during games so far this season, practices have been relatively clean according to Freeze.

“They [the wide receivers] actually haven’t fumbled any [in practice],” Freeze said. “We’ve had a few passes go off our hands. I haven’t seen evidence that we’ve carried it too loosely but we call that out. Our running backs have been very solid with taking care of it [the ball].”

The Tigers host the No. 21 Oklahoma Sooners at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. CT. The television broadcast can be found on ABC or livestreamed on ESPN+.