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We’ve reached one of the busiest tines of the Auburn sports calendar. On Saturday, Auburn hosts Kentucky and just a few days later, the Auburn hoops season kicks off as the Tigers look to return to the Final Four in back-to-back seasons for the first time in school history. However, they’ll be doing it with newly minted head coach Steven Pearl controlling the sidelines. While Basketball begins in a few days, have the Auburn Tigers found the quarterback to save their season? And maybe Hugh Freeze’s job? Before Auburn’s crossover season begins, let’s take a look at some of the top stories in Auburn Athletics over the past week. All about Ashton With Auburn’s season fading quickly under a cloudy Arkansas sky, Tigers quarterback Ashton Daniels came off the bench to revive the Tigers offense and push the Tigers to a second half comeback win over Arkansas this past Saturday. Although Daniels transferred from Stanford over this past season, his connections to Auburn and its history, go much deeper and wearing blue and orange, as AL.com’s Peter Rauterkus explains. Daniels may or may not be the starter when Auburn takes the field against Kentucky on Saturday. Regardless, his place on the team is meaningful. To his coaches and teammates, Daniels is an experienced quarterback who capable of stepping in and leading at any time, bringing two years of starting experience with him. That was valuable against Arkansas and never hurts to have. To his family and to himself, Daniels’ place at Auburn is a dream come true. His name embodies the legacy of his father’s late cousin and creates a feel-good story out of one of the program’s most tragic moments. That’s without mentioning what Daniels’ path to Auburn means to him personally. At what he describes as one of his “dream schools,” he’s emerged as a more than capable contributor. If you ask him, that came from betting on himself, even when he was overlooked out of high school and put in a backup role when first arriving on the Plains. Auburn thrives in the ATL The last time Auburn basketball was in Atlanta, the Tigers were punching a ticket to their second Final Four in school history. Although their return trip provides much lower stakes, the preseason showdown vs. Memphis may have proved that Auburn will remain a tough out ahead of their season opener on Nov. 3. After faltering on defense vs. Oklahoma State at Boutell a few weeks ago, head coach Steven Pearl corrected things, and the results put a notch in the win column for Auburn on Thursday night. Now with Pearl implementing more zone looks on defense, including 2-3, 1-3-1 and a 3-2, it’s clear opposing teams struggle to shoot against these formations, as Memphis shot 37% from the floor and 20% from beyond the arc. “I think it really threw them off guard, and we were just constantly changing defenses from man to zone,” Pearl said. “There was a lot of possessions where they were running zone offense against our man to man because we did such a good job. I thought of being in gaps early in the game where it really disguised it as if we were in a zone.” Freeze’s future While a win over Arkansas stopped any of the outrage towards a Hugh Freeze firing (for now, at least), someone still needs to be held responsible for a season that began with so much promise, now continues to be teetering on the edge. So, if Hugh Freeze stays, does that mean changes may come to Auburn’s offense? AL.com’s Kevin Scarbinksy brings up Auburn’s multi-million-dollar dilemma. The logical move after this exhausting season-long malaise would be to fire the person responsible for overseeing the offense, calling the plays and nurturing a quarterback who’s stuck in neutral. At Auburn, the responsible party happens to be the head coach. In Freeze’s three seasons, his offense has regressed each year from 11th to 12th to 13th in the SEC in scoring. Under no circumstances should he be allowed to run the offensive show for another season. He’s gone down swinging at the most important position on the field three times in signing Payton Thorne for Year One, retaining him for Year Two and signing Jackson Arnold for Year Three. Arnold’s abysmal pick-six late in the first half at Arkansas finally earned him a seat and Stanford transfer Ashton Daniels a shot, which seemed to give the offense a bit of a spark. Instead of rewarding Daniels with the start against Kentucky based on that performance, Freeze turned this week of practice into a quarterback competition.
