AUBURN — There's plenty to like about what Auburn football did this offseason.

The Tigers went out and revamped their coaching staff, moving on from offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery in January and hiring Derrick Nix from Ole Miss nearly two weeks later. They added a bevy of blue-chip talent in the Class of 2024, a group highlighted by receivers Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson. They also made some noise in the portal with transfer additions such as receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith (Penn State) and safety Jerrin Thompson (Texas).

But will it lead to more wins? Other teams have made improvements, too, and Auburn isn't without any faults.

With less than 90 days to go until the season opener in Jordan-Hare Stadium against Alabama A&M on Aug. 31, here are a few areas of concerns fans should be thinking about heading into coach Hugh Freeze's second year:

BRIGHT SPOTS: They're young, but Auburn has 3-headed monster growing at pass rusher

HOOPS: The 2024-25 edition of Auburn is Bruce Pearl's most experienced. Will it matter?

Cam Coleman's youth

Freeze has been consistent in his assessment of his young pieces: Expecting big things from true freshmen is a recipe for disaster, but Coleman isn't like everyone else.

"Very few people are just ready made and walk in and play in this league, and I want our young men to understand that and that doesn't mean they're not really, really good," Freeze said April 2. "But Cam, on the other hand, is a different cat. ... He's got to go as a freshman."

Of the dozens of receivers to suit up for Freeze over his 11-year run as a head coach, six have logged over 100 yards in their true freshman seasons. Laquon Treadwell in 2013 (608) and AJ Brown in 2016 (412) are the only two with more than 250 receiving yards.

Coleman's recruiting ranking and his showing throughout spring practice is reason for optimism, but he's still young at the end of the day. The Tigers need him to show up, regardless.

Will the defensive line hold up?

Auburn desperately needed to make some instant-impact moves along the defensive line this offseason, and that's exactly what it did with the additions of transfers Philip Blidi (Indiana), Trill Carter (Texas), Gage Keys (Kansas) and Isaiah Raikes (Texas A&M).

Holes have been patched, but are the plugs strong enough to hold up for the entire season? Losing Marcus Harris to the NFL stings, and Justin Rogers was solid in his work as a gap stuffer. It's to be determined whether or not one of those transfers will step up into a bigger role and become more than just a rotational option.

"We think that's just added great depth to us," Freeze said May 8 of the portal defensive linemen.

Payton Thorne's improvement

The Tigers, who averaged 162.2 yards through the air last season, had the SEC's worst passing offense in 2023. Auburn hadn't averaged fewer passing yards a game since it threw for 156.6 per contest in the 2012 season, the last before former coach Gene Chizik was fired.

From the coordinator to the offensive weapons, Freeze changed a lot in an effort to make sure that doesn't happen again. What didn't change, though, was the quarterback, as former Michigan State transfer Payton Thorne is set to be Auburn's starter for the second year in a row.

With a full offseason to work, and what appears to be improvement all around him, the onus is on Thorne to figure it out and get his numbers back to what they looked like when he was with the Spartans.

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn football: Areas of concern ahead of Hugh Freeze's second season