Auburn coach Hugh Freeze lifted his visor up and rubbed the top of his forehead as he sat down to his post-game press conference following the Tigers’ loss to Oklahoma on Saturday.

He knew his team was close.

Auburn committed 13 penalties, allowed 10 sacks and held the lead in the fourth quarter. But John Mateer, the leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy, led the Sooners on a 75-yard touchdown drive with less than five minutes left to provide the home team a come-from-behind win.

Freeze kept his cool after the game, but his frustration came through clearly. Here’s what the Auburn coach had to say.

Opening remarks

Tough. Tough, tough. That’s a really dang good football team, particularly defensively. They do a lot of good things. You just can’t, we had 13 penalties. You’re just not going to win on the road in this league when you do that. It’s like I told our team, I love them, man. I love their competitive spirit. I think this league is so dang tough. There’s going to be a lot of teams that lose difficult games in this league. It’s just one. We’ve got to regroup, go back on the road and play another very talented team, but I think we proved today we can play with those talented teams, also.

On running game struggles

Both defenses stopped them pretty dang good. But it’s something you want to stay committed to as long as you can because you saw what happens when you get into a two-minute drill and they can pin their ears back. You’re trying to constantly balance that, where you stay in-balance where you’re trying to have some efficient runs to get you on track along with your drop-back passes. … You’ve got to give them credit. They made the tackles. Certainly kept us guessing as to what coverage they were going to be in in those third-down plays.

On Sategna’s touchdown

I thought we had three seconds on the clock and a timeout.

On giving up 10 sacks

I’d rather watch the film before I say on that. Some of the credit goes to Oklahoma and their front, but that’s way too many. We’ve got to go back to work and get that corrected. Said going into this game that was one of the true unknowns, really, that we didn’t have a big enough sample size for. Do think that’s one of the better pass-rushing teams in the country. There’s others that are really good in this league, too, so we’ve got to go back to work on it.

On special-teams play

Undisciplined. Bad decisions. Put our offense in a bad spot twice. Three times, I think. Blocks in the back. Just, man, it was, that was disappointing. Certainly I’m disappointed. Bad snap gave them their first score.

On missing the little things

These games come down to those. Yeah, it’s frustrating for him, for me, for everybody when you have a chance to change the scoreboard and you don’t. They make a long pass on their last scoring drive to win it that was iffy, whether it was a completion or not, I don’t know. Those plays, one or two can certainly, whether it was our muffed punt deal that gave them their first score or it’s we missed the pass here or a block here. They’re all vital in games like this.

On Jackson Arnold’s pressure

I don’t think he had any concern for the pre whatever we call it. I think he was more concerned about that Oklahoma defense like we all were. That was tough sledding. We’ll have to watch the film to see some of the early sacks. Could he have gotten out, I don’t know. Those late ones, that’s hard ask. No. 32 is going to do that to a lot of teams in a two-minute drill.

On Auburn’s defense

I thought they competed their tails off. I thought the muffed punt and the overturn on the scoop-score, those two things, our defense holds them, I mean, y’all can figure it up, what it’d be. Those are two critical plays in th game. Our defense, they played really good. Yeah, we busted some coverages with those young kids back there. But I think it’s probably down from what it’s been. I thought they did a great job early on corralling their quarterback and their running game.

On overturned scoop-and-score

I saw him bobble the catch initially then gain possesion of it right here then run two steps, us tackle and him roll over the back of us and then the ball come out.

On OU’s final touchdown drive

Throwing it every down. They went empty. He’s a threat to run or throw and they have good receivers. Had the explosive catch down the sideline that they reviewed, said it was a catch. Hit us with some shallow routes at times that we kind of didn’t do our best job. Credit to them, they went down and scored.

On Venables’ defensive play-calling

He’s one of the best we’ve faced. He does an incredible job and has incredible talent, which makes calling plays a lot easier. But he does a great job. Mixes in a lot of different coverages and disguises them well.

On encouraging his team to bounce back

That’s what I already told them in the locker room, ‘Hey, we lost a tough one on the road in a very good conference against a highly ranked team and we didn’t play our best and had a chance to win it.’ We have a saying now. ‘What’s our response? Good. Let’s play the next one.’ You’ve proven that you’re a good football team to go toe-to-toe with that team that’s going to win a lot of football games in their place. Thirteen penalties. We did take care of the football, but you can’t have 13 penalties and special teams play like it did, put us in a hole all night long against that defense. … That’s what the film says plus we’ve obviously got to get better at protecting and find ways to run the ball. But you’re right there in it. I think this league, I think there’s going to be a lot of teams that look up at the end of the year with two losses. It’shard to win on the road. I hate like heck, it stinks that we didn’t steal one on the road today. Certainly had a chance to if we play a little better.

This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: What Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said after Tigers fell to Oklahoma