Hugh Freeze is feeling better about Auburn’s quarterback room than he was a week ago.

Entering the fourth week of spring practices, Freeze said the Tigers’ quarterbacks have started to make more strides when it comes to understanding the new offense and the requirements of their position within it.

“We got better last week,” Freeze said. “…I thought we improved most of the week.”

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It was a more upbeat tune from Auburn’s first-year head coach than a week ago, when he expressed his concerns about the progress of the quarterbacks during spring practice. Last Monday, Freeze gave a blunt assessment of the quarterback room — and the passing game as a whole — when he said the position was not where it needed to be at this point in the spring, particularly when it came to the RPO aspect of the offense.

That caused Freeze, offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery and analyst Kent Austin to reassess how they are teaching the offense to the Tigers’ trio of quarterbacks: Robby Ashford, T.J. Finley and Holden Geriner. As a result, over the course of last week’s three practices, Freeze added in some additional teaching periods with the group to help them get a better grasp of the fundamentals of the offense.

Those added periods of emphasis seemed to produce the kind of results Freeze hoped for, and he said he’s starting to see “flashes” of the quarterbacks picking up on the concepts being presented to them. The group as a whole particularly made strides during last Monday and Wednesday’s practices, even if Friday’s scrimmage was more of a mixed bag.

“Some of those (scrimmages) are very hard to judge things on, because you’re not game-planning for it, and both sides are still trying to add things, and you got a play-call that really has no chance of working if they have a certain call on,” Freeze said. “Hopefully in a game, we have a better gameplan to where that happens very few times. But that happened a few times. It’s good teaching. But I thought the quarterbacks overall, we took a step forward.”

That was certainly the case for Geriner, the redshirt freshman and least experienced member of the trio vying for the starting job. Geriner appeared in just one game last season, attempting just three passes off the bench against Missouri, and he has mostly been the third quarterback in the rotation this spring.

He took advantage of an opportunity last week, however, as Ashford nursed a sore shoulder that prevented him from throwing during Wednesday’s practice and limited him during Friday’s scrimmage. Ashford’s limitations later in the week came after last Monday’s practice in which Ashford had his best day of the spring, according to Freeze. With Auburn being cautious with Ashford’s shoulder, that meant more reps with the first and second units for Geriner, who put together an impressive week of practices overall.

“I thought he really, really, really stood out all week with his improvement and his play,” Freeze said. “Not that the others didn’t improve also, but I thought he really — his grasp of what we were trying to do, he was impressive last week. But again, it’s still a competition. I think competition just is good for everybody, and how you respond to it is critical. So, the more we can create, and we’ll just keep rotating those guys to see kind of how they handle the competition.”

Geriner carried that into Monday’s practice, the 10th of the spring, when he worked with the first-team offense during the pace period that was open to the media during the early portion of the day. Geriner worked with a group that included running back Jarquez Hunter, wide receivers Ja’Varrius Johnson, Koy Moore and Nick Mardner, and tight end Rivaldo Fairweather. Finley was the second quarterback in the rotation, while Ashford was third.

That was just a small glimpse at the overall progress of the group heading into the final two weeks of spring, of course, and Freeze reiterated before Monday’s practice that the competition is far from over. The plan is for the trio of quarterbacks — and any potential additions the team makes at the position during the May transfer window — will continue into the fall.

“The offseason will play a role in leadership and how the players are responding and rallying around you,” Freeze said. “That is the most important position that we have, and so it’s going to take time to evaluate it. But I did think they all took some steps forward.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.