AUBURN | Sitting on the left side of the room where Hugh Freeze was introduced as Auburn's new football coach, Robby Ashford was smiling and shaking hands with everyone around him. While we will never know what was going through the quarterback's mind, it wouldn't be surprising if he saw a coach who could turn him into a star.

It was just three seasons ago that Malik Willis took over as the starting quarterback for Freeze at Liberty after transferring from Auburn. Known more as a running threat, Willis quickly became a household name in the sport as he threw for 2,250 yards and 20 touchdowns with a 64.2 completion percentage while rushing for 14 more scores and 944 yards, leading the Flames to a 10-1 record and bowl victory over previously unbeaten Coastal Carolina.

Freeze, maybe seeing a little bit of Willis in Ashford, talked about the quarterback during his press conference.

"When I watched Robby's last game, I think I told John (Cohen), 'Alright, he's got me intrigued now,'" the coach said.

That game he is talking about was the Iron Bowl when Ashford ran for 121 yards, two touchdowns and threw an absolute dime to Ja'Varrius Johnson for his only passing touchdown of the day. That throw made Freeze's eyebrows rise even more.

"I saw him make some throws in that game—there's one particularly in the right corner of the end zone that was a really, really difficult pass, and it was beautifully done," Freeze said.

Willis is not the only quarterback that has shined under Freeze's tutelage. In the coach's first three seasons in Oxford, Bo Wallace threw for 9,534 yards and 62 touchdowns while rushing for 19 TDs. Chad Kelly followed and was better, breaking Eli Manning's school record for most passing yards in a season with 4,042 and tying Manning's record with 31 touchdowns that year.

As Freeze said, he thinks he has a "gift to help develop quarterbacks."

"I think if you look at everywhere we've been, we've had pretty good success with that, and I'm very anxious to get to work with not only him (Ashford)—he's a tremendous athlete—but I think there's other good players in that room, too," the coach said. "But I was impressed with how I thought he improved."