The Auburn Tigers are once again at the center of the college football media universe this week after finally doing what many thought was inevitable and firing head coach Hugh Freeze.

With director of athletics John Cohen beginning the new search — a search he says he and he alone will be making the final decision on — the focus from most fans has turned to who is going to wind up taking over.

Looking at what has now become the past though, it’s tough, at least initially, to see why the partnership between Freeze and Auburn didn’t work out. Freeze had a reputation both as an elite offensive mind and an elite recruiter, and while the offense especially this year never got off the ground, he did do an incredible job rebuilding the roster after a bare cupboard was left by Bryan Harsin.

This is reflected in a defense that is among the nation’s best and a wide receiver group that will be highly sought after should they enter the transfer portal this offseason. For Freeze, the lack of success obviously came down to not winning enough games, but there’s really only one reason why that was the case.

Quarterback.

It’s not to say the likes of Payton Thorne and Jackson Arnold should be blamed for the way things went. Not at all actually. This is on Freeze and his ability to evaluate and develop the position.

Thorne’s performance in the first season under Freeze can be excused due to him being a late spring portal window addition and simply never being able to get on the same page with the rest of the offense.

But instead of going after one of the top transfer quarterbacks headed into his second year, Freeze doubled down on Thorne.

This proved to be a critical error as Thorne’s performance from year one to year two seemed to get even worse, but headed into year three, the roster was finally ready to compete, and Freeze made another brutal choice in Jackson Arnold.

It seemed Freeze went for the biggest name possible in the former five-star, and as guys like John Mateer, Fernando Mendoza, Darian Mensah, and Miller Moss have excelled, Arnold has struggled this year even worse than he did last season at Oklahoma where he was benched.

While Deuce Knight was the future of Freeze’s program and ultimately may wind up being great, Freeze did not buy himself enough time to where decision makers were willing to find out.

If Freeze had nailed the quarterback position in this past portal window, he would still be the head coach of Auburn today. But he didn’t, and as a result the Tigers are looking for a new head coach for a third time in five years.