AUBURN – The Auburn football team started its SEC slate on the losing side, falling to Arkansas in a heartbreaking 24-14 loss at home at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday.
Although they ended up with more total yards, the Tigers (2-2, 0-1 SEC) struggled with turnovers: They finished the game with five, including four interceptions. Auburn now has 14 turnovers in four games and is just six away from matching last season’s total of 20 turnovers in 13 games.
Auburn coach Hugh Freeze called the loss to Arkansas awful and addressed the poor play of the quarterback. Hank Brown started and threw three interceptions in the first half before Payton Thorne threw an interception.
“I’m just at a loss for words. It’s just disgusting,” Freeze said. “It’s disgusting that we can’t take care of the football on offense and just – I’ve got to fix this.”
“And obviously we’re not doing a very good job of coaching the quarterbacks right now. I have no idea who’s starting in the next game as I sit here right now. But I’m going to go back to work (on Sunday) and be as focused as I’ve ever been to try to get this fixed.”
More: Auburn Football loses SEC opener with five turnovers against Arkansas
Wide receiver Keandre Lambert-Smith was the Tigers’ best offensive player, rushing for 156 yards and two touchdowns on five catches. Smith caught a 67-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to three points.
As a senior, he doesn’t want to blame anyone for the teams’ weaknesses. Overall, Smith wants to take the pressure off the quarterbacks and hold everyone accountable.
“It’s frustrating, but we’re not going to blame anyone. I think everyone has a part to play in it,” Smith said. “Everyone has to protect the ball as a team: quarterback, running backs, receivers, whoever has the ball at the time. I think we can all get better at that. We need to look at the fixes and get back to work.”
“As a team, we’re facing adversity right now. We believe in the quarterbacks as an offense and as a team. They’re going to get a handle on this and make the corrections. The receivers are going to take responsibility for some of those interceptions, deflected balls that we should have put deeper down the route or somewhere else. We’re going to take responsibility and we’re all going to come together as a collective and be better.”
Thorne finished the game with 213 passing yards and two touchdowns for Smith after taking over the game in the second half. Now, as he finds himself in another quarterback situation and wondering who will start next week against Oklahoma, Thorne says the best way for the Tigers to get back to winning ways is to execute.
“Back to execution: We have to watch the film,” he said. “That’s the first step. And we have to come together and make a decision: a decision that we’re going to go out there and win, and that starts with winning every game. So I have to know my job, put my eyes in the right place, use the right technique and then ultimately finish.
“So we have to do that consistently throughout the game. And I think if we can do that, we’ll be happy with the results.”
