Jarquez Hunter made life easy for Auburn’s offense against Kentucky. Rushing for 278 yards, he cut down the call sheet as the game wore on, orchestrating the offense through Hunter and the running game.

But the game didn’t start that way. Hunter only had one carry in the first quarter and the repeated complaints from Auburn fans about Hunter’s lack of involvement were louder than ever.

When interviewed by the SEC Network broadcast after the first quarter, Freeze said Auburn needed to establish the run, and to say Auburn did that would be an understatement. When asked what was different about the running game against Kentucky, Freeze’s answer wasn’t complicated.

“We showed a few different things, but at the end of the day, truth be told, it wasn’t like they were extremely sophisticated races,” Freeze said. “It was mostly inside areas that we blocked really well. Then our guys made the first one miss and created some explosive runs.

Freeze gave a lot of credit to the offensive line, a unit that had a slightly different alignment against Kentucky. Dillon Wade started at left tackle with Bradyn Joiner at left guard after Percy Lewis was left out of the lineup in Missouri’s loss.

Wade finished the game with a run blocking grade of 81.1, according to Pro Football Focusthe highest on the team. Right tackle Izavion Miller also performed well on the other side of the line, earning SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week honors.

Freeze said Auburn’s reluctance to run the ball in the first quarter was due to Kentucky’s run defense.

“Nobody had really gaslighted them in the running game,” Freeze said. “I still think we have a good plan, and we need to be balanced and execute it, but I wanted to start the game trying to throw the football to them.”

Kentucky gave up 197 rushing yards to Florida the previous week, but before that it hadn’t given up more than 145 rushing yards in a game. Auburn rushed for 326 yards. The Tigers’ 6.5 yards per carry was also two yards more than any other team’s average against Kentucky.

Auburn has shown it can have a lot of success running the ball and this isn’t the first time Hunter has been effective. He now leads the SEC in rushing yards, but Saturday was only the second time this season he had 20 or more carries in a game.

When he gets the ball, he is dangerous, averaging 7.2 yards per carry. With Auburn running an RPO-based offensive scheme, most decisions to run or throw are reads made by the quarterback.

Auburn seemed to call more designed runs against Kentucky and when the offensive line wins consistently, those simple runs are effective.

The offensive line and overall blocking performance has varied from game to game for Auburn, but even without great blocking, Hunter is one of the best running backs in the country after contact. He averages 6.4 forced broken/missed tackles per 20 carries, according to Sports Info Solutions, the most in the SEC.

Freeze sometimes talked about the balance between constantly handing the ball to Hunter and throwing the ball and shooting. Being pass-heavy and rooted in downfield passes yielded mixed results for Auburn early in the season, producing many explosive plays but also causing turnovers.

When Auburn committed to giving Hunter the ball, it hardly failed. It remains to be seen how much his 278 yards against Kentucky will affect the offense going forward, but with an offensive line gaining cohesion and the conference’s leading rusher behind it, the plan for success might not be too complicated .

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on @peter_rauterkus or send him an email to [email protected]m