Prior to Auburn’s SEC matchup against Ole Miss, Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze previewed what he’s seen from Ole Miss this season.
“It’s going to be a tremendous challenge,” Freeze said. “I’m thankful that we’re at home in Jordan-Hare. We need it to be at its all-time best, and I know it will be. And we’ll get ready and excited to play in this challenge, but really good football team coming in.”
Freeze spent five seasons as the head coach of the Rebels from 2012-16, but this won’t be Freeze’s first time facing his former team. While at Liberty, Freeze and the Flames faced No. 16 Ole Miss in 2021, in which the Rebels won 27-14 in Oxford, Mississippi. For Freeze, having faced Ole Miss once already since his departure is a good thing for his emotions.
“I think that it actually helps a lot,” Freeze said. “Because that removes the ‘hey this is your time playing Ole Miss since your departure from there’ and so, I think it’s very helpful. That was an emotional day originally… but we’re seven, eight years now removed from my seasons there.”
After the LSU game, Freeze questioned the energy his team came out with, saying he “didn’t think we fought as hard,” and that fell on him not preparing them. Auburn linebacker Eugene Asante echoed Freeze’s statement on the team’s lack of energy saying, “We need to be more juiced and ready to play the game and more excited to play the game.”
To try and reverse how Auburn came out in the Tigers’ blowout loss to LSU, Freeze is preaching a message to his team halfway through the season: opportunity.
“We’re playing to win a game at Jordan-Hare Saturday night… we should play for each other, and we should serve each other and we should love each other enough to play,” Freeze said. “... Hopefully we have enough players that lead well enough that man we see another opportunity to represent each other and our university and another step toward hopefully getting better as a program. But how we prepare this week will show on Saturday, it always does.”
Like Auburn’s opponent last week in LSU, the Tigers’ opponent this week in the Rebels have a prolific offense. Like the Bayou Bengals, Ole Miss is ranked in the top four in the SEC statistically in points per game (41.7), yards per game (489) and passing yards per game (306). LSU and Ole Miss played in a shootout just a few weeks ago that saw the two teams go toe-to-toe with the Rebels coming out victorious at home 55-49, proving that each team has a high-powered offense.
For Freeze, he sees many similarities between the two offenses and admitted it is difficult to prepare against Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin and offensive coordinator Charlie Weiss Jr.’s offense.
“They’re (Ole Miss) similar. They go faster than LSU. LSU’s not tempo all the time,” Freeze said. “Lane and Charlie, they want to go fast all the time, and that’s hard to prepare for, for sure. They do a few more things in the run game than LSU and probably in the pass game too. Their quarterback’s playing at a high level. I think he’s only turned it over two times. Talented receivers, great running backs, O-Line’s solid.”
Auburn (3-3) and Ole Miss (5-1) will kick off at 6 p.m. CST. The matchup between the Tigers and Rebels will be televised on ESPN.
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Jacob Waters is a senior majoring in journalism. From Leeds, Alabama, he started with The Plainsman in August, 2021.
Twitter: @JacobWaters_
