Hugh Freeze and the Auburn Tigers are looking to bounce back after a disappointing 2024 NCAA season, and they have found their starting quarterback to guide them through the Southeastern Conference. After naming the Tigers’ QB1 for 2025, Freeze dropped a stern wake-up call, one the Alabama Crimson Tide, Texas Longhorns, Georgia Bulldogs, and the rest of the SEC should carefully listen to.
Auburn will kickstart the 2025 NCAA campaign with a visit to the Baylor Bears at McLane Stadium. The Tigers are featuring a brand-new quarterback room after the departures from Payton Thorne and Hank Brown, and the arrival of Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold, Deuce Knight, and Ashton Daniels.
The Tigers are looking totally different now, and they hope they can showcase that by improving from their rough 5-7 record in 2024. As Freeze named the starter for the 2025 college football campaign, he voiced a firm vote of confidence to his QB room, putting Alabama, Texas, Georgia, and every SEC program on notice.
“Jackson Arnold, [the starting quarterback job] is his,” Freeze stated, according to On3. “I like our quarterback room a lot. I would argue that between Jackson [Arnold] and Deuce [Knight] and Ashton [Daniels], our quarterback room rivals the top rooms in this league. Now we’ve got to go prove it. Jackson didn’t prove it last year at Oklahoma.”
Plan B quarterback
Along with Arnold, Freeze’s Auburn features Knight who is gearing up for his freshman year in college football, yet is already making a name for himself in The Plains, where the head coach has the utmost confidence in the 18-year-old.
“His arm strength — he can make every single throw as a true freshman, and I haven’t seen that a lot,” Freeze added. “He’s got this demeanor about him that everybody wants to be around him and is drawn to him. He’s a zero excuse maker. He comes in and he studies and I just think the sky’s the limit for a guy with that size, that range, that arm strength, that IQ.“
Auburn is determined to abandon the SEC basement, and Freeze made sure to remind that to the Longhorns, Crimson Tide, Dawgs, and the top teams in the league.
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Moreover, Auburn will vie to snap their losing streak against Alabama, with their win in the Rivalry Week showdown being in 2019. Freeze, Arnold, and the Tigers will walk into the season aiming to end their five-year drought in the Iron Bowl.