AUBURN | Hugh Freeze is not set in his ways. At least on the practice fields.

Auburn’s first-year head coach has had to adjust his practice behavior to his new staff and new players.

“I think every DNA of every team I’ve coached is a little different and every staff is a little different,” said Freeze. “Truthfully, the last four years, I haven’t had to be, how should I say it, the practice jerk. But I’ve kind of found out I need to be that here, and calling people out.”

Of course, Freeze’s version of “calling people out” is not quite as harsh as you might see from other coaches.

“I like to refer to it as calling people up,” said Freeze. “But I think I’m needed to do that here. I’m figuring out the coaches too and what I need to do to motivate our team. That’s probably the biggest thing.

“I thought we had better practices this week because I chose to take the lead on, ‘This is how we’re going to do it.’ I thought we got better.”

The first position group Freeze focused his ire on this week was the defensive backs, which perhaps return the best combination of talent snd experience than any on this year’s team.

The defensive line and linebackers, however, could be next.

“I thought our DB’s got a little bit better at tackling, at guarding,” said Freeze. “We’re still struggling to get off blocks in the front six some with our front and our linebackers. We’ve got to continue to work on that and improve it.”