AUBURN—In his first start as Auburn’s quarterback, Hank Brown left the field as the Tigers' unsung hero, showing his capability of leading the offense in the right direction moving forward.
Brown threw for four touchdowns and 235 yards, and the redshirt freshman left head coach Hugh Freeze impressed with his play. But as is the case with almost every quarterback making his first start, there were some improvement points to be made.
“He was thinking a little too much, so awareness of the clock stuff,” Freeze said on what Brown struggled with on Saturday. ”But the three things that he did, one was a poor choice on a rollout pass. The other two were not, not necessarily bad passes. There's just a better option, you know, on certain things, whether it's you need to throw into pressure here, or you did not need to check out of this, it was not man coverage. And, you know, that just comes with experience.”
Brown led the Tigers’ offense into a scoring frenzy in the second half against the Lobos, scoring on every drive except the final one, as he was complemented by an extraordinary run game and playmakers all over the field.
“He got us in the right runs,” Freeze said. “One hundred percent of his checks were right. So, his decision making was good. His execution was good. Could have had a higher percentage of completions, I think, had a drop by Perry. And had a couple wet ball issues probably that hurt him some there at the end of the second half as we had no time outs and we weren't getting a dry ball in, but I was pleased with his first performance, for sure.”
Freeze stated after the win on Saturday that Brown would be the guy at that quarterback spot moving forward into next week’s matchup with Arkansas. With that, there’s not much of a grace period for Brown, who is still getting acclimated to life as “QB1” in the SEC.
“I’m not much on slack, so he's got to get it done," Freeze said. “You’ve got a veteran senior behind him in Peyton that we still have belief in. But Hank looked poised. I don't think the moments are too big for him now.”
Brown, previously committed to Freeze at Liberty, has a longstanding relationship built on belief and trust with his coach, an important bond for any quarterback to have from his head coach.
“I've recruited Hank since he's a 10th grader at Liberty,” Freeze said. “He was committed to us there. I don't know if y'all know that or not. So, I believed in Hank a long time, and just got to know he and his family really, really well, because they came to a lot of visits, a lot of games, and I've always felt like he had this it factor to him as an individual."
“So, I've always had this kind of sneaking belief that he had something to him. And now we're getting ready to find out at what level. There's no question he does. What level is that out right now compared to the rest of the SEC? We're getting ready to find out.”
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