Eugene Asante has been the highlight of the year for Auburn football.

The effort Asante puts on display every weekend is one that captivates college football fans. The junior linebacker wants to win every snap and leaves little to be desired in his pursuit of doing it.

“There’s no question of the effort he’s going to give,” Freeze said of Asante after Saturday’s loss at Texas A&M. “It hurts him when we don’t succeed, and you see that in his face.”

Ask Freeze to point to the “Asante of the offense”, however, and you might be left waiting while Auburn’s head coach stammers.

“We’re searching truthfully,” Freeze said. “That was one of the things… I think we have to get more swagger on the offensive side.”

Auburn’s defense has Asante, his heart, his relentless effort and his now-iconic “Let’s work!” catchphrase.

Auburn’s defense also has a defensive backfield full of swagger as guys like Jaylin Simpson come into games wearing sunglasses with punchy sayings on the arms and a “turnover seatbelt” around their neck. Not to mention the choreographed celebratory dances with Freeze on the sideline.

The offense, on the other hand, has…

[insert cricket noises here]

In most college football locker rooms, the quarterback is the leader of an offense.

However, most college locker rooms aren’t steering towards a quarterback controversy midway through the season. So, in the case at Auburn, it’s hard to ask a quarterback to lead a locker room when his job under center is all but secure.

That leaves Freeze and the Tigers’ offense looking elsewhere for leadership. And when dealing with an offense that has been as inept as Auburn’s, a little positivity can go a long way, which is why Freeze name dropped veteran tight end Luke Deal when discussing leaders on the offensive side of the football.

“The most positive guy by far to this point has been Luke Deal,” Freeze said. “I think he’s one that has a good grasp on how this league plays out, how difficult these games are and how challenging they are for 60 minutes and how you can have three bad possessions in a row. We’re not the only ones that have those. But yet you have to maintain this attitude that the next one can be the one that matters.”

Positivity and swagger might not be interchangeable terms, but it’s a start.

Even after a loss like Saturday’s, Deal’s glass-half-full mentality is unchanged.

When asked what he saw on the film from the Texas A&M game, Deal didn’t first point out how inept the Auburn offense was. Instead, he commended the Tigers’ defense, which did everything it could to keep Auburn afloat in College Station.

Deal also tipped his hat to the Tigers’ running backs and offensive line.

But the list of rainbows and butterflies stopped there.

“I mean, the elephant in the room, we gotta fix everything else,” Deal said. “We’ve gotta fix just being together and being on one accord through the whole game. Just keep doing what we’re doing well and fix the things that we’re not doing well.”

Sure, hearing a veteran player say “we gotta fix everything else” heading into Week 5 of the season with the No. 1 team in the country coming to town is concerning.

Fortunately for Auburn, Freeze and Deal aren’t asking the Tigers’ offense to show them something they haven’t shown them before.

“In fall camp — and I think the defensive guys would agree — we definitely had it there. We were taking it to them pretty good during fall camp,” Deal said of the Auburn offense. “We’ve had some really, really high spots on offense and I think the biggest thing is just everyone being on the same page. I think everybody just having that same mindset that each and every play is its own play. Be excited for the good ones, flush the bad ones.”

The Auburn offense wasn’t on the same page during Saturday’s loss to Texas A&M.

That was evident from an Xs and Os standpoint as the Tigers’ quarterbacks missed open receivers and the offensive line gave up sack after sack.

But Deal hints that the offense might be lacking cohesion beyond the Xs and Os, too.

“But there are some parts of our offense that just there wasn’t that connection,” Deal said. “There wasn’t that swagger. There wasn’t that, just, being excited for each and every play. There was no rhythm.”

The nature of football can be deceiving.

As physical as it is, football is a dance. There’s a certain element of grace to it. And a disconnected football team is a football team with two left feet – especially on offense.

So how does the Auburn offense get that back?

It starts by holding each other accountable. And without a clear-cut leader on offense, that task might fall on the shoulders of Deal.

Freeze doesn’t like to use the term “calling someone out”. Instead, he refers to it as “calling someone up”.

And this week, Deal is prepared to do a bit of calling up.

“I don’t mind speaking what we need to talk about,” Deal said.

Does Deal’s willingness to be Auburn’s vocal leader on offense equate to the likes of Asante? Maybe not, considering Deal isn’t an on-field staple like Asante.

But at the moment, while the Tigers’ offense continues to grasp at straws, it might be up to Deal to keep the ship straight. And goodness knows the winds are going to be blowing this Saturday as No. 1 Georgia comes to town.

“This week, like we talked about, it’s a big rivalry game, Georgia’s a great team,” Deal said. “They’ve had a great program for a long time so we’re going to respect that, but for us we just need to get ourselves right, we need to get back to our roots.”