Sources: Freeze to take over Auburn playcalling

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The Tigers cap off 2023 in Nashville as Rivaldo Fairweather sets a school season record for TE receptions (38), but the Terrapins come out on top, 31-13. (0:37)

Chris Low, ESPN Senior WriterJan 9, 2024, 10:58 AM ET

College football reporter
Joined ESPN.com in 2007
Graduate of the University of TennesseeAuburn’s head coach Hugh Freeze will take over playcalling duties on offense in 2024, sources told ESPN.

Freeze called his own plays during his first three head-coaching stops at Arkansas State, Ole Miss and Liberty and is widely considered one of the top playcallers in college football. But with Freeze in his first year as Auburn’s head coach this past season, he hired offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery to be the primary playcaller. Auburn struggled offensively and finished 11th in the SEC in scoring offense (26.2 points per game) and was held to 20 or fewer points in six games.

Freeze announced Friday that he had fired Montgomery after just one season. Montgomery had been Tulsa’s head coach for eight seasons, but the Tigers ranked 121st out of 130 FBS offenses in passing offense (162.2 yards per game) while finishing 6-7, including a 31-13 loss to Maryland in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl.

Freeze considered several different options in terms of who would run the offense next season, and although it’s more demanding than ever in this era of college football for a head coach to call his own plays, Freeze decided it was the best move for the program, according to sources. There were times last season that Freeze said he was more involved in calling plays, but Montgomery was the primary playcaller.

When Freeze was out of coaching following his firing from Ole Miss, he talked to Nick Saban about the Alabama offensive coordinator job, but there was pressure from the SEC office that no SEC school hire Freeze until Ole Miss was off NCAA probation. Gus Malzahn was also interested in bringing Freeze in as Auburn’s offensive coordinator prior to Freeze landing the Liberty job.

Freeze’s Ole Miss offenses averaged more than 32 points per game each of his last two seasons in Oxford. His 2020 and 2021 offenses at Liberty both finished in the top 25 nationally in scoring.

With Freeze taking over playcalling, the plan now is to move Kent Austin to quarterbacks coach after he served in a quality control role at Auburn in 2023 and special assistant to the head coach. Austin, a former Ole Miss quarterback, was with Freeze at Liberty as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Austin previously worked in the CFL as a head coach and general manager and was also the Cornell head coach from 2010 to ’12.