Still More Questions than Answers on Auburn's Hugh Freeze

After the dust settled from Auburn's 17-7 loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores, things may have actually look worse than the immediate aftermath.

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze in conversation with Vanderbilt's Clark Lea before the Commodores win. / Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

When you consider the fact that Vanderbilt held the Auburn Tigers scoreless for three of the four quarters they played on Saturday night, sliding to their sixth loss of the season was fairly academic.

If the previous week's road win at Kentucky had momentarily breathed life back into head coach Hugh Freeze and the Tigers, reverting to even more-shocking clock management and rudderless play calling has put everyone back in the mire.

You could say it went from the sublime to the ridiculous, especially when running back Jarquez Hunter, only one week removed from a 278 yard performance, was granted a messily 2 carries in the entire second half.

Only 12 carries in total for the bang in form Hunter also tells the tale of a team who very clearly doesn't know its own identity on offense, 

Unsurprisingly, Vanderbilt committed rather intensively to stop the Tigers running game.

"I thought Vandy did a good job, played a lot of bear front and did a lot of different things that were going to take away some of the run game from us," Freeze mused after Auburn's 17-7 loss.

Yet another calamitous loss only serves to pile the pressure on coach Freeze moving forward; he simply keeps on getting things wrong. Calling a timeout with one second left before the two minute warning speaks volumes of how incompetent the coaching actually has been this season, Freeze called it, "Just a bad decision."

Pouring more gasoline on the fire is barely required, but wasting another strong defensive performance will tick that particular box, and in no uncertain terms.

Auburns' defensive unit must be edging closer-and-closer to having serious words over the lack of support from the offense, and after all that, the only thing Freeze could offer up post-game was to state the obvious yet again.

"The defense played outstanding and gave us a chance to win the game," Freeze lamented. "Offensively and special teams-wise, we're not playing at a high enough level to win these games. We've got to finish drives and get points. We didn't convert near enough third downs to stay on the field. I think that's what it comes down to."

For heaven's sake, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia didn't even complete a pass in either the second or third quarter, but he certainly wasn't lacking in feverish desire to get one over the Tigers once again.

"A lot of people didn't take a chance on me," Pavia declared after the Vandy win. "[Auburn's] just another team that didn't and I just wanted to make them pay."

Ultimately, poor execution and coaching still lies at the core of Auburn's ceaseless troubles this year. In truth, the motivating factors which drive Pavia to win games might also be lacking from this Tigers roster at the moment.

Despite the obvious issues on offense, Freeze appears determined to cling onto control by his very fingernails.

Push just turned into shove, so giving up some responsibility might be a path of self-preservation which Freeze finally opts for, but not as yet.

"No, I don't think we're at that point, just maybe limiting the scope of what we're trying to do," Freeze insisted.

In the final analysis, it's all just massively frustrating for fairly simplistic reasons, but they keep on coming back like a troubling bout of indigestion. One player who does always show selfless commitment to the Tigers' cause is Hunter, so not using him to carry the team gets even more perplexing, especially after this latest car crash.