Hugh Freeze Says Auburn Practices Have Been 'A Little Too Chippy'

The Auburn Tigers are smack in the middle of fall camp.

According to head coach Hugh Freeze, practices have been getting physical. Some days, a little too physical.

"It's been a little too chippy and unprotective a couple days," Freeze. "And I don't know exactly how to balance that. I guess you can go the route of not having a lot of contact, but I just don't know that you can win in this league without having some physical practices in camp. And it scares you to death, truthfully, because we need to stay healthy. We're not that deep in places. So we've stressed that heavily the last three days of trying to practice cleaner without people on the ground, and it has gotten a little better."

Freeze followed up on what he meant by a "little chippy" - it's not been anything extra - just the circumstances of different physical plays.

“No, we haven’t had a lot of extracurricular stuff. You always have a little of that. I only remember two of those. They weren't terrible, but it's in the play," Freeze said. "It's where there's inside running. Defensive line runs a twist, and everybody gets tangled up, and now there's five guys on the ground on top of each other, or a running back is going through the hole during that drill, and that happens, and it's that far from hitting the bottom of his leg, on his ankle or somewhere. And then in one-on-ones, is always a challenge to get the DBs to stay off when they're in trail position, to stay off the back of the receivers. That's kind of how (KeAndre) Lambert-Smith got his ankle. So most of it’s been during the plays, just people getting after it and being physical, and just too many bodies on the ground.”