Auburn's defense has to follow special rules for Jackson Arnold?
Auburn Receives Unfortunate Jackson Arnold News on Monday originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
The pressure on the Auburn Tigers heading into the 2025 season is among the highest in college football.
Coach Hugh Freeze has an 11-14 record in his two years on the job and is likely coaching for his job. As a program, Auburn hasn't won more than six games in a season since 2019, and quarterback Jackson Arnold, who transferred from Oklahoma, is hoping to revive his career after being benched in 2024.
While the former five-star recruit has the potential to be a great player, he has struggled with consistency. His decision to transfer to Auburn was supposed to help him find his confidence and take that next step, but Cole Cubelic of the SEC Network revealed the offseason may not be going as well as both parties had hoped.
In a video posted on Monday, Cubelic told 247Sports' Josh Pate that Freeze has told his defensive staff to take it easy on Arnold so he can build up his confidence.
"I'm a little bit down on Auburn after yesterday," Cubelic said. "Hearing Hugh Freeze talk about instructing his defensive staff to essentially make life easy on Jackson Arnold in practice to boost his confidence. Is this the end-all be-all? No. Does this mean Auburn's going to go 6-6? No. I just don't like that when I know that confidence is the one thing that needs to be rebuilt in him."
While in most cases, you'd want a player to build themselves up organically, this comment shows Arnold is still trying to overcome his issues from Norman. As he expressed during media day, once the season started to go south at Oklahoma, Arnold frequently received messages encouraging him to take his own life.
If Auburn is unable to tap into Arnold's five-star potential, it can turn to Stanford transfer Ashton Daniels or five-star freshman Deuce Knight.
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared.
Category: General Sports
