Scouting the Enemy: Georgia vs. Auburn

We take a look at arguably one of the more tough road games on the Georgia Football slate this season, an October trip to the Plains of Auburn, Alabama.

In December, 2020, Auburn Athletic Alan Greene made the audacious decision to defy Auburn’s powerful boosters and hire Brian Harsin from Boise State as the program’s new Head Football Coach following the dismissal of Gus Malzahn. While internecine warfare between Auburn’s boosters and Athletic Department was raging behind the scenes during the entirety of his tenure, Harsin failed to win enough on the field, thereby giving those hostile to his presence on the Plains the upper hand and the necessary pretext to run him out of town. After a second-consecutive losing season - Auburn’s first back-to-back losing seasons since 1998-99 - Harsin’s fate was sealed and he was fired after just two seasons on the job.    

With Greene now out of the picture, the tensions between Auburn’s influential boosters and athletic department have cooled and a refreshingly united decision was made to bring in former Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze - who possesses the SEC head coaching experience and recruiting bonafides that Harsin lacked - to restore the program to its winning ways. However, given the significant decline in Auburn’s recruiting fortunes under Harsin, Freeze faces a difficult task rebuilding the Auburn roster back to a level where it can realistically compete for championships. Despite overhauling the roster with 20 transfer additions entering the 2023 season, questions remain as to just how quickly Freeze’s hire will pay dividends on the field.

Auburn Tigers quarterback Robby Ashford (9) is pressed by Georgia Bulldogs defensive lineman Warren Brinson (97) during the second half of a NCAA college football game between Auburn and Georgia in Athens, Ga., on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2022. Georgia won 42-10. News Joshua L Jones

OFFENSE

After Auburn finished 10th or worse in the SEC in total offense, yards per play, and scoring offense in 2022, Freeze has set out to give the Tiger offense a desperately needed makeover entering the 2023 season. At the most basic level, schematically the Auburn offense will look markedly different under Freeze. Freeze tabbed former Tulsa Head Coach Philip Montgomery - a coach with a reputation as one of college football’s top offensive minds - to serve as Auburn’s offensive coordinator. Montgomery hails from the Art Briles coaching tree and served as Baylor's offensive coordinator from 2012-2014, a stretch of years in which the Bears offense finished inside the top-2 nationally in total offense three times and twice finished No.1 in scoring offense. Stylistically, Montgomery has traditionally favored an up-tempo Air Raid offshoot that emphasizes spacing and pushing the ball vertically down the field, which is a sharp contrast to the more pro-style system that Harsin attempted to implement at Auburn.

However, before Montgomery’s offense can take off, the Tigers will have to find an answer at quarterback, something the Tigers were unable to do a year ago. LSU transfer T.J. Finley opened the season as Auburn’s starting quarterback before giving way to freshman Robby Ashford following a blow-out home loss to Penn State. Ashford brought dynamic running ability to the position, but he struggled significantly as a passer. The Hoover, Alabama native ran for 709 yards and 7 touchdowns, but posted an alarmingly low 36% success rate as a passer last season and his 49% completion percentage for the season was the lowest completion percentage for an Auburn quarterback since 1998. Due to the lack of quality options, Ashford went through spring drills as Auburn’s starting quarterback, but shortly after spring drills ended, Freeze made a splash in the transfer portal by bringing in former Michigan State quarterback Peyton Thorne to compete with Ashford. Thorne threw 46 touchdowns and 21 interceptions in 25 starts over the past two seasons for Michigan State and helped lead the Spartans to an 11-2 record in 2021. With Finley transferring to Texas State, Ashford and Thorne will battle it out through fall camp to determine who will open the season as Auburn’s starting quarterback.

While quarterback was the primary issue for the Auburn offense last year, an uninspiring receiving corps certainly did not help matters. However, after Freeze aggressively addressed the deficiency by adding a quartet of receivers from the transfer portal, the situation at receiver entering the 2023 season is far brighter than it was a year ago for the Tigers. Nick Mardner, a 6-foot-6, 215-pound receiver from Cincinnati gives the Tigers a big-bodied possession receiver who posted 913 yards receiving at Hawaii in 2021. Ohio State transfer Caleb Burton is a former top-150 national recruit with high upside that transferred to Auburn after being unable to crack Ohio State’s talented receiver rotation as a freshman last season. Jyaire Shorter, a transfer from North Texas, only caught 23 passes a year ago but 11 of those receptions went for touchdowns. He averaged 27.3 yards/catch for the Mean Green a year ago and will give Auburn a threat to take the top off of defenses in 2023. The Tigers also added Shane Hooks, Jackson State’s leading receiver from 2022, in late-May to round out their receiver transfer class. While he only managed to amass 493 yards on 26 receptions last season, Ja’Varrius Jonhson also returns as Auburn’s leading receiver from 2022.

As poor as Auburn’s passing game was last season, the Tigers’ rushing attack was among the most effective in the country, finishing inside the top 20-nationally and rushing for more yards (318) against Alabama than any other team in the Nick Saban era. However, with the departure of leading rusher Tank Bigsby and the possibility that Ashford - who was Auburn’s second-leading rusher in 2022 - might not be part of the equation for the Auburn offense this season, it remains to be seen whether the Tigers can come close to matching their rushing output from a season ago. After impressing in a complimentary role to Bigsby each of the past two seasons, junior Jarquez Hunter steps into the spotlight at Auburn’s feature back and will likely be asked to shoulder a significant workload for the Tigers this season.

While the prospect of losing its two leading rushers from a year ago poses a challenge for the Auburn run game in 2023, the Tigers will likely boast an improved offensive line. Offensive line play has consistently been an issue for Auburn for several years, but as he did at the receiver position, Freeze addressed the issue by bringing in four offensive linemen from the transfer portal including Dillon Wade and Jaden Muskrat from Tulsa, Avery Jones from East Carolina, and Gunner Britton from Western Kentucky. Wade, Jones, and Britton all project to start for Auburn this season and Muskrat will battle for a starting guard spot during fall camp.

DEFENSE

With all 11 players that played snaps in the secondary for the Tigers in 2022 returning this season, the secondary projects to be the strength of the Auburn defense and provides new defensive coordinator Ron Roberts a degree of stability as he puts his stamp on the Auburn defense. After flirting with the prospect of declaring for the NFL draft, starting cornerbacks Nehemiah Pritchett and D.J. James elected to return to Auburn for their final seasons of eligibility and give the Tigers one of the strongest corner duos in the league. Jaylin Simpson has tremendous upside at safety after impressing when he transitioned to the position late in the 2022 season and will combine with Zion Puckett, who enters his third season as a starter, to form a strong safety tandem for the Tigers.

The picture in the front-7 is not as promising for the Tigers as they have to replace a number of their most productive players from a year ago including leading tackler Owen Pappoe and their two top pass rushers in Derrick Hall and Colby Wooden. That is alarming for a team that finished 96th nationally in rush defense a year ago. Once again, though, Freeze turned to the transfer portal to address Auburn’s issues by adding a collection of players to shore up Auburn’s talent and depth concerns in the front-7. Headlining the group is Kentucky defensive line transfer Justin Rogers, a former top-100 national recruit who was a highly effective player for the Wildcats and will give the Tigers a force in the middle of their defense. 

To help cushion the losses of Hall and Wooden on the edge, Auburn added Mosiah Nasili-Kite who amassed 14.5 sacks over three seasons at Maryland and Jalen McLeod who totaled 12.5 tackles for loss and 9 sacks over three seasons at Appalachian State. At inside linebacker, the Tigers added Austin Keys from Ole Miss who was a career reserve for the Rebels and Larry Nixon III who started 24 games over four seasons for North Texas. While Freeze added experience and depth to the Auburn front-7, outside of Rogers, none of the additions project to be upgrades over the players they are replacing.

With the Brian Harsin era in the rearview, Auburn has gambled that Hugh Freeze’s SEC experience and proven recruiting acumen will elevate the program and return the Tigers to championship contention. While Freeze’s track record suggests that he will eventually turn the Auburn program around, the roster mess that Harsin left him with complicates how quickly the new Tiger coach will be able to do so. While Freeze has raised the floor of the 2023 Auburn team by leaning on the transfer portal to provide immediate upgrades to the roster at key positions, the overall talent level within the program is still significantly below that of the true championship contenders in the SEC.