Could Jackson Arnold be the End of Auburn's QB Woes?

Quarterback play has seemed to haunt the Auburn Tigers ever since Bo Nix transferred.

The Tigers have tried TJ Finley, Robby Ashford, Payton Thorne, and even players like Hank Brown and Walker White, with little to no success. Despite this, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze seems confident in his new pickups for 2025 in transfers Jackson Arnold and Ashton Daniels and freshman Deuce Knight.

Arnold, a former five-star who transferred from Oklahoma, seems to be the solution for Freeze, at least for now, and Freeze is quite confident in Arnold’s abilities.

“I thought he was super talented, and there's a reason he was Gatorade player of the year and a five-star quarterback,” he said Tuesday SEC Media Day.

Despite such natural prowess, there was one issue. Arnold had a rough season last year with the Sooners, riddled with injuries, sacks, and too few passing yards, and his struggles eventually led to him being benched.

Still, Freeze believes the struggles go beyond just Arnold.

“You go in your mind, like the lack of production at Oklahoma has to be, you know, at least dealt with,” Freeze admitted. “You go study all of that and you find out the facts, where [Oklahoma] unfortunately had a lot of injuries, both offensive line and receiver, and I think that affected Jackson's play… You see his toughness all throughout the year, especially the Alabama game, where he just played one tough football game, and you combine that with the system I want to run, and he does have the skill set for that.”

This, after a rough showing over the last two years from a transfer quarterback in Thorne, is a massive vote of confidence from Freeze, who had earlier revealed that he’d been wanting Arnold since his high school days, but just couldn’t get a hold of him over the Sooners until now.

Arnold is a high-class athlete, but will he be able to fit into the Auburn team and produce in a way that the last five starting quarterbacks haven’t? Only time will tell.

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