After a fourth straight SEC loss stained by a consistently bad passing offense, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze confirmed offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery is still the primary play-caller during his Monday press conference.

Montgomery has been highly maligned for a passing offense ranked among the bottom 10 in the nation in terms of passing yards per game and has continued to use a quarterback rotation between Payton Thorne and Robby Ashford.

“Monty is calling the plays,” Freeze said. “I obviously have input. I’m never one to sit here and place blame on coaches. It’s a combination. It’s all of us. I certainly listen to the plan and evaluate it. It’s harder for me than I thought with the verbiage and stuff to be real involved in every area.”

Freeze also said some other coaches have input in the play calling including the offensive line coaches.

Montgomery was hired after he was fired to call plays after he was fired as the head coach of Tulsa. The idea, Freeze said back at SEC media days in July, was that Montgomery calling plays would allow him to have more freedom to handle all the responsibilities as Auburn’s head coach. Largely, that meant recruiting where Freeze has been successful to this point.

But before the Georgia game on Sept. 30, a week after Auburn’s offense had mustered just three points on its own against Texas A&M, Freeze said she was going to have to talk on more of a role in the offense. Auburn scored 20 points against Georgia, then 18 against LSU an 21 this past week in a loss to Ole Miss after Freeze put himself more into the picture.

He said before the Georgia game that he was not able to spend as much as he wanted recruiting as a result. But Monday he said his role since has been approving game plans while still leaving the majority of the play calling to Montgomery.

Freeze said Monday he was much more involved with Auburn’s 13 package, meaning the formations with more tight ends and running backs. Largely, that was Robby Ashford’s package focused on running the ball, Freeze said.

“Didn’t work quite like anticipated,” Freeze said. “We had some really good plays out of it at times. But you know, it’s not always the play-caller either.”

Freeze also said he hopes the offense will lean a bit more on its running game than it already has — easily the area of the offense that has been most successful and now especially so following starting running back Jarquez Hunter’s best game of the season.

The goodwill of fans toward a struggling offense began to fade Saturday when the offense was booed off the field multiple times.

Largely, it comes as a result of an offense that has fallen into the fault of doing the same thing every week for seven weeks to no success. Auburn’s total offense is ranked outside the top 100 nationally. Auburn is also ranked outside the top 100 in third down conversion rate, sacks allowed, passing efficiency and passing yards per completion.

Auburn does not appear in a positon where it plans to cut ties with Montgomery. Freeze is confident that his offensive plan will work, at some point. That’s why the same plan continues each week even when it failed.

If Auburn were to choose to move on from Montgomery at any point, the school would owe him a full buyout of his contract worth just over $3 million.

But just like it asks fans to be with the building of this program, Freeze is being patient with this struggling offense.

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