Hugh Freeze pleased with Auburn football's effort, but physicality 'scares me to death'

AUBURN — Auburn football coach Hugh Freeze didn't mention his situation specifically, but Texas running back CJ Baxter's injury is something that terrifies him.

Baxter, who rushed for 659 yards and five touchdowns as a true freshman in 2023, suffered a season-ending injury at practice Tuesday. Jonathon Brooks was the starting RB for the Longhorns last year, but Baxter was the expected starter in 2024. Without him, Texas will have to look elsewhere for production on the ground.

It's a cautionary tale Freeze hopes he doesn't have to experience with the Tigers.

"I’m pretty pleased one week in (to fall camp)," Freeze said Friday. "The effort’s been great. It has been a little too chippy and unprotective a couple of days and I don’t know how to balance that. ... I guess you can go the route of, you know, 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 me to death, truthfully, because we need to stay healthy."

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Freeze later clarified that "chippy" doesn't necessarily mean fights after the whistle. He recalled two instances in which emotions spilled over the top, but "you always have a little of that" and "they weren't terrible."

What he meant is the physicality within the play. Offensive and defensive linemen have been desperate to get after one another, and running backs have been running into piles of collapsing bodies. Freeze also talked about how eager defensive backs have been trailing too close to receivers and getting their legs tangled up, which is how Penn State transfer KeAndre Lambert-Smith recently tweaked his ankle.

During the portion of practice open to reporters Wednesday, Lambert-Smith was spotted working away from the team. He had pads on, however, and there wasn't any indication from Freeze that it'll be a longterm issue.

"We haven’t had a lot of extra curricular stuff," Freeze said. "... Most of it has been during the plays, just people getting after it and being physical, and just too many bodies on the ground."

Freeze added: "We’re not that deep in places, and so we’ve kind of stressed that heavily the last three days of trying to practice cleaner without people on the ground. And it has gotten a little better, but we had two days in a row where some really scary things (happened) when you watch the film that easily could have hurt somebody. I think everyone’s dealing with that to a certain extent and me just trying to figure out exactly how to approach that. ... I don’t know that I have the answer."

The Tigers are set to scrimmage amongst themselves Saturday. The whole event won't be live tackling, but some of it will be. Expect for some key players to be held out.

"We sure need to tackle some," Freeze said. "I’m not on my phone all day, pretty much, and I open up dadgum Twitter/X, whatever you call it, to see a team in our conference lost their starting tailback. That keeps you up at night.

"Not all of the scrimmage will be live, but my plan currently, yes, there will be a portion of it live. In the portion of live, there will probably be a few people who don’t participate."

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Hugh Freeze pleased with Auburn football's effort, but physicality 'scares me to death'