Hugh Freeze has known Hank Brown much longer than when the two arrived at Auburn. The head coach has recruited his current starting quarterback since Brown was in the 10th grade, and prior to Freeze leaving Liberty for the Plains, Brown was set to join him in Lynchburg, Va.

Even before Brown started playing for the Tigers, Freeze knew he had something special about him.

"I've always felt like he had this it factor to him as an individual," the coach said.

Brown brought that factor to the field this past Saturday after learning he would be the starting quarterback for Auburn against New Mexico. While his performance wasn't perfect, it was good enough to impress his head coach. Brown finished 17-of-25 for 235 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions in the 45-19 victory.

He was given the chance not only because of Payton Thorne's struggles but also because of what he had done in the past when he saw the field.

"Every opportunity that he got here, even though the sample size was really, really small, every single time that he got that opportunity, it seemed pretty natural for him," Freeze said. "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."

The tests for Brown ramp up in difficulty starting this Saturday as the Tigers welcome Arkansas to Jordan-Hare Stadium in their SEC opener. There's no time for struggles, not that Freeze would cut Brown any slack in the first place. He expects the quarterback to get the job done, no matter how inexperienced. But that doesn't mean that the playbook has to be outlandish.

"It doesn't have to be some 84 plays that we have to have to win the game," Freeze said. "Let's do the plays that schematically match up with what they do and let's do them very, very well and do them over and over again with the options that we have off of them. And I think Hank can handle all that just fine."

There are things to be cleaned up by Brown, though. After reviewing Saturday's game film, Freeze saw just three needing correction other than clock awareness. One was a throw into triple coverage on a rollout play. The other two weren't wrong; there were just other better options for where he could have gone with the ball.

As for the run game, the head coach said Brown was 100 percent in getting the offense into the right rushing plays after seeing what the defense was giving.

All in all, it was a terrific outing for Brown as he got his feet wet as the starting quarterback.

"I was pleased with his first performance, for sure," Freeze said. "Next week will be a bigger test for him."