Auburn suffered a similar fate on Saturday afternoon at Jordan-Hare Stadium, losing to Arkansas 24-14. The Tigers had five turnovers against a Power Four opponent for the second straight year and their fourth consecutive Power Four loss.

“I’m at a loss for words,” Freeze said after the team’s second straight loss to an opponent Auburn was favored to beat. “It’s just gross, gross that we can’t take care of the football on offense, and I need to fix that.”

Auburn now has 14 turnovers in its first four games – the Tigers have had 20 in the 13 games of the 2023 season. The exact 10-point loss in Auburn’s SEC opener came right after the Tigers’ turnovers.

“He (Hank Brown) didn’t play well in the first half, missed open players and obviously threw the ball into coverage,” Freeze said of the redshirt freshman’s performance. “And obviously we’re not doing a very good job of coaching quarterbacks right now.”

In his first SEC appearance, Hank Brown only lasted until halftime after throwing three interceptions to start the game and converting four of ten after his first three successful passes.

“We have to catch the ball when it comes our way. We have to shoot and we can’t lose the ball like we are doing right now,” Freeze said.

Former starting quarterback and current team captain Payton Thorne played the entire second half for Auburn. The Tigers managed 14 points and 258 yards of offense to Arkansas’ 170, but regardless of who played quarterback on Saturday, Auburn struggled to finish offenses.

“We just weren’t good enough on offense. Our defense was good enough to win the game, but we just weren’t good enough on offense,” Throne said.

After Arkansas’ touchdown early in the second quarter, DJ Durkin’s unit held the Razorbacks scoreless on seven consecutive drives.

However, the Hogs dominated Auburn in terms of time of possession early in the game, leading 11:30 to 3:30 at the end of the first quarter, and the Tigers simply seemed to run out of steam in the home stretch – allowing Arkansas to score on its final three drives before simply trying to take time off the clock on their final possession.

“It was devastating,” Freeze said of Arkansas, which converted five of its 10 third downs in the second half. “I mean, they obviously fought so hard after the offense put us in some bad situations and to keep us in the game.”

Arkansas quarterback Taylin Green completed only 12 of his 27 pass attempts for 151 yards, but the Razorbacks managed 183 yards to Auburn’s 146. Green and Ja’Quinden Jackson each rushed for 75 yards.

“If we could have just gotten off the field on third and long, that defensive effort would have been quite remarkable, to be honest,” Freeze said. “We can’t do that, but they defended hard.”

The only bright spot of the day for Auburn was wide receiver Keiondre Lambert-Smith, who scored both of Auburn’s touchdowns and had five catches for 156 yards. The Penn State transfer had two catches of 56 and 67 yards.

“There are signs that we can do some good things, but we can’t play as inconsistently as we do. And that gets really, really frustrating and boring. I’m sure it is for a lot of people,” Freeze said.

With the second loss of the season, the Tigers have fallen to a 1-5 record in Power Four home games under Freeze, with Auburn scheduled to play No. 15 Oklahoma, No. 2 Georgia and No. 7 Missouri in the near future.

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Patrick Bingham | Sports editor

Patrick is a junior from Auburn, Alabama, double majoring in journalism and marketing. He started at The Plainsman in fall 2022.

You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @patrickabingham.

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