When Hugh Freeze initially looked at the 2025 class, there was one quarterback that stood out.

Wednesday morning, he signed that quarterback — Deuce Knight.

"Deuce was kinda my first choice when I first got here," Freeze said. "I loved his length, I thought his upside was huge. I know his high school coach real well, we go way back to junior college days."

It wasn't always that way, though. There was a point in time where Freeze felt like he dropped the ball in the recruitment of Knight before getting back in the battle this summer.

Knight, who's out of Lucedale, Miss., transferred from George County HS to Lipscomb Academy ahead of his junior season.

"When he transferred from there to Tennessee, I honestly lost a little interest and thought he was headed another direction," Freeze said. "I kinda dropped the ball, truthfully."

The quarterback wasn't in Nashville long, electing to transfer back to his hometown just a few games into the season. Once he was settled back in the Magnolia State, things changed for Freeze.

"When [Knight] came back to Mississippi, I said, 'Man, I gotta shoot my shot," Freeze said. "He was committed to Notre Dame, which is a fine program, and knew it wouldn’t be the easiest thing. Just kept hammering away, along with our quarterback staff and recruiting staff."

It was a staff-wide effort and Freeze credits everybody on the offense for not just building a relationship with Knight, but his family as well. We're talking about his mother, father, sister, brother, uncles and anyone else involved in Knight's recruitment.

"We kept on and kept on and kept on," Freeze said. "And so did others."

Ole Miss, more specifically. Lane Kiffin got involved down the stretch in an effort to keep Knight in his home state. Kiffin got Knight on campus several times this fall, even multiple times after Knight had switched his commitment from Notre Dame to Auburn back in October.

Knight's most recent visit to Oxford was last Friday for the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State, but the effort to change his mind about his Auburn pledge was unsuccessful.

"I think he knows he fits the system," Freeze said. "He obviously knows the people I’ve coached and had conversations with them about what that’s like and it didn’t hurt that his favorite player was Cam Newton, either. I think he felt a good feeling about his fit here, his opportunity, his chances. Obviously he’s got to compete for it like everybody else does, but just glad that we were able to make up the ground. That’s a big get, probably one of the higher quarterback signees that Auburn’s had in a while."

Over the years, Freeze has coached plenty of quarterbacks. Chad Kelly is arguably the "most talented" quarterback Freeze has ever coached, Bo Wallace "won a lot of big football games" and Shea Patterson was also "really talented."

However, Freeze sees similarities between Knight and one of his quarterbacks from his time at Liberty.

"I think of Deuce in the Malik Willis type world," Freeze said. "I think he has a demeanor about himself like Malik did that people just gravitate to and they want to follow. He makes people around him better and Malik had this humility about him, also, even though he carried this great confidence. I think Deuce has that same type of mentality."

What's the difference?

"I think his ceiling is probably the highest of anybody that I’ve initially worked with," Freeze said. "He’s just so long and rangy, he can run and arm strength. He’s got all of those skill sets. How quick can he pick up on the college game and the speed of it at this level? We’ll see."

Knight will be one of 21 signees from the class that will arrive in the spring as an early enrollee. Auburn now has three scholarship quarterbacks, as Knight joins a room with Hank Brown and Walker White, with a transfer also expected.

"[Knight]’s ready to go to work, I know that," Freeze said. "He’s excited to get here and get to work. We’ll see how him, Walker and Hank handle the spring."