Hugh Freeze had had enough.

This is his offense, but it had been awful. He’d tried to stay away. But after an October loss to Ole Miss — Auburn’s fourth in a row — and an offense that had gained more than 300 yards against a Power 5 opponent just once all season, staying away was just no longer an option.

Freeze hasn’t seemed comfortable with the role he’s had for the majority of the season. He’s talked about how hard it has been for him to pass off play-calling duties — the first time he’s done that as a head coach. After Auburn’s loss to LSU, Freeze questioned why Auburn isn’t running the up-tempo offense more — the type of play that is so central to his style.

But he still tried to stay away. To let offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery be in control and let himself focus more on recruiting.

Until he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I went in after the Ole Miss game and I said, ‘This is it, this is what we’re doing,’’” Freeze said. “‘And don’t anybody ask me anything else, becuase this is what we’re doing.’”

That moment of Freeze putting his foot down will be the key moment in a turnaround that seemed highly unlikely for an offense that had played so poorly over the first seven games. Freeze expanded his role in game planning in addition to play calling. After beating Arkasnas 48-10 for a third win in a row, Freeze said play calling is now a mixture of himself, Montgomery and even offensive line coach Jake Thornton.

In a response to a question about defensive coordinator Ron Roberts on Monday before the Arkansas game, Freeze had said he likes to hire people and get out of their way “until they prove they can or can’t.”

He tried to stay out of Montogmery’s way. But he’s stepped in now. After struggling to grapple with his own choice to give up some offensive responsibility, he made his change.

It’s worked.

The offense now with Freeze’s fingerprints on it has run more of the up-tempo, run-pass-option scheme Freeze knows best. Auburn has had its three best games of the season since he became more involved.

“Look, the responsibility lies with me if we play well or we don’t,” Freeze said. “We had a dang chance to win a few other games, and I wish I had put my foot down earlier and said, ‘This is the only thing I feel comfortable being able to help. If we operate like this, I can help.’ And that’s probably the turning point.”

Auburn’s players see the difference as an offense that finally found confidence.

During the losing streak, Freeze had said he worked with quarterback Payton Thorne to improve his pocket presence. Thorne was consistently holding onto the ball too long and making wrong reads on RPO plays. Freeze, too, had said throughout the season Auburn’s performances at practices were not translating to games.

But Auburn is seeing that translation now, and jack linebacker Elijah McAllister has seen an “elevated” confidence from the offense he faces each day in practice. That elevation has led to a group of 11 on the field that no longer lives with doubt it can produce. But how exactly does a team improve its confidence on the heels of a four-game losing streak?

“Just belief that the score can lie to you sometimes,” McAllister said. “Belief in what you see on the tape and the plays that can show up on Saturdays. The ball can roll either way. Just practice really hard. We’ve got a pretty good defense practicing against us, making plays against us helps too.”

The emergence has seen Auburn produce more than 400 yards of offense in each of the three straight wins including 517 against Arkansas. Thorne has played his best football without quarterback rotation with Robby Ashford and running back Jarquez Hunter has rushed for more than 100 yards in three straight games.

“Coach Freeze, his track record speaks for itself,” Thorne said. “Tobe honest, I don’t really know how much he is calling, I’m not on the headset. I don’t have the NFL earpiece. So I don’t know exactly how much he’s calling, but I know he’s calling some plays. He’s calling some good ones. He’s dialing up the defense right now and it’s fun to play.”

Thorne helped lead Auburn’s dominant performance Saturday. Thorne played 10 drives before he was pulled from the game due to the margin Auburn led by. Auburn scored on seven of those drives.

The success, Thorne believes, is because he feels as confident in this new offense as he has all season. Thorne said he recently has had meetings with Freeze to discuss not just Auburn’s gameplan for a given week, but why Auburn is running certain schemes or designs in certain situations. It’s helped Thorne gain a greater understanding of his job.

Gaining confidence and comfort in this new offense has taken time for Thorne after his transfer from Michigan State. Freeze has said part of his stepping into the offense meant accepting that Thorne had the best knowledge of the RPO schemes compared to other quarterbacks and thus greatly diminishing Ashford’s role to not playing at all except in mop-up duty.

Part of the issues the offense faced was a group of new players taking time to learn a new scheme. But the sudden upward trend of this offense after Freeze stepped in would make Montgomery’s role with the team not quite clear.

That question will play itself out in the offseason. It will provide more clarity on how responsibility has been broken down this season after Freeze added his footprint.

This offense isn’t going to go without Freeze’s mark again this season.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]