Auburn Daily

Hugh Freeze Overhauls Auburn Tigers QB Room, Banking on Athleticism, Upside

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze has pinned his future on former Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Jackson Arnold.

Keith Cummings

Jackson Arnold signed with the Auburn Tigers after spending two seasons with the Oklahoma Sooners.
Jackson Arnold signed with the Auburn Tigers after spending two seasons with the Oklahoma Sooners. / William Purnell-Imagn Images
In this story:

New Auburn Tigers quarterback Jackson Arnold is a classic case of natural talent failing to mesh with consistent productivity as yet.

In all fairness; that's why he's moving on from the Oklahoma Sooners to hook up with Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze down on the Plains. 

Freeze has rather quickly revolutionized the construction of his quarterback room, and most folks would give out a collective sigh of relief for that. Walker White was the last holdout of the 2024 Auburn quarterbacks, and he hit the portal on Saturday according to reports.

Even the most basic estimation of any football layman would deduce that Jackson and 5-star high school recruit Deuce Knight offer intriguing upsides moving forward, because the duo's strong arms come complete with strong legs.

Both Walker White and Hank Brown (Iowa) will disappear in the portal elsewhere without much teeth gnashing from the Auburn Family.

So Freeze sounded mighty enthused to be moving onto his pet project which will be attempting to unleash the huge untapped potential deep within Jackson.

"The fit he is for our offense and for Auburn, I couldn't be more excited," Freeze explained via AuburnTigers.com. "He's a dual-threat guy who understands the RPO system extremely well and throws the deep ball extremely well."

Arnold saw time as a freshman in 2023 at Oklahoma, but it was only in spot duty, going 44 of 69 passing for 563 yards and four touchdowns against three interceptions. He began the season as a starter before being benched in favor of Michael Hawkins Jr. who Auburn faced in September.

He returned to the starting lineup after the Sooners were blown out by South Carolina. On the season, Arnold was 154 of 246 (62.6%) passing for 1,421 yards with 12 touchdowns against just three interceptions. He also added 444 yards on the ground and three touchdowns.

Arnold's ability to throw the deep ball might be what attracted Freeze to the Texan-born passer the most, and helped close a deal to sign him in a mere three days. 

If Arnold's natural talent can be harnessed more fully, and then married to the abundance of receiving talent the Tigers have at their disposal, the new partnership could be off to the races.

Turning the page on some underwhelming quarterback play might appear as easy as bringing two in and shipping all four 2024 quarterbacks out. In practice however, added degrees of complication exist, especially when it comes to finding just the right blend.

Jackson is quite clearly the bridge option before Knight is in a position to take over, but he's also the guy Freeze is pinning his hopes on in 2025 to make sure he gets a chance to develop Knight.

It's wise to keep a safety net in place for the programs sake: that's important because rushing Knight into the lineup prematurely might prove catastrophic to his development.

Either way you slice it, sheer levels of athleticism under center are clearly on the rise now that Arnold and Knight have joined the set up.

With their key additions, the burgeoning hope within the Tigers fan base is that it opens up the offensive playbook somewhat, it could be doing with a real shot in the arm quite frankly.

And with that, it's over to you coach Freeze. 

Published
Keith Cummings
KEITH CUMMINGS