Former Auburn football standout Anthony Schwartz expressed his biggest regret regarding the 2024 Tigers roster: missing the opportunity to sign Cam Ward during the offseason. Now a Heisman candidate at Miami, Ward has made a significant impact.
“We should’ve given Cam Ward the whole checkbook, man,” Schwartz tweeted after Auburn’s 21-17 loss to Mizzou on October 19.
This season, Ward has completely transformed the situation at Miami, especially after the Hurricanes struggled to execute even basic plays last year, leading to a missed win against Georgia Tech.
He could have similarly changed the narrative at Auburn, which has continued to rely on Payton Thorne and Hank Brown. Meanwhile, quarterbacks like BYU’s Jake Reztlaff and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel have demonstrated the potential impact a transfer QB can have.
But Hugh Freeze opted not to take that risk.
Freeze explained that he believed his existing options were sufficient and didn’t want to invest heavily in a transfer QB. Speaking on NIL considerations in May, he stated, “I believe in our quarterback room… If you have the right pieces around Payton, we can have success. There were glimpses of that, but we didn’t have a complete package.”
He weighed the choice between developing his current quarterbacks and spending around a million dollars on a new player but ultimately chose to invest in internal development.
In hindsight, those words didn’t age well, while Ward has thrived at Miami. If only things had gone differently.
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