Hugh Freeze Keeps His Eye on Auburn QB Payton Thorne

Head coach Hugh Freeze is busy getting his Auburn Tigers in shape for their upcoming season. But he is carefully watching over quarterback Payton Thorne. Freeze has high hopes for Thorne, a Naperville, Ill., senior, who enters his second year as Auburn's starter.

Ahead of the teams Aug. 9 practice, Freeze talked with reporters about Thorne's progress.

"I really don't want to remember last year," Freeze said, according to Barrett Sallee of College Football Covered & Smothered. "But I don't want to set him up for undue criticism or anything. Obviously, quarterbacks are going to have that if you don't have success. They're going to get all the praise if you do have success. But I'm pleased with exactly where he is."

Auburn Closely Watches Thorne

Thorne transferred into Auburn last season after playing at Michigan State. He earned the starting job, passing for 1,755 yards with 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Thorne, an Auburn team captain, also had 425 yards rushing. In the Tigers' 31-13 loss to Maryland in the Music City Bowl, Thorne was 13-for-27 passing with a touchdown pass to Brandon Frazier.

Auburn, despite reaching a bowl game, had a pretty down season in 2023. The Tigers finished 6-7 overall, losing their last three games. In Southeastern Conference play, Auburn was 3-5.

In looking back on Auburn's first week of fall practice, Freeze admitted to being fairly pleased with his players.

"Really pleased, honestly, which is shocking to me," he said, according to Rivals.com. "When I say really pleased, it’s a back and forth, you wish, that’s probably a good thing to see how each side responds. Offensively and defensively, it’s been some good back and forth and I think our kids are gaining an understanding of both schemes and making the checks and adjustments that we need to."

Freeze Eyes Live Practice

The Tigers will hold a live practice inside Jordan-Hare Stadium on the morning of Aug. 10. Don't expect to see Thorne out there in the middle of contact drills. It's not going to happen. Also, Freeze might keep out key players on offense and defense. Seeing the Texas Longhorns lose running back CJ Baxter to a season-ending knee injury got his attention.

"We sure need to tackle some," Freeze said, according to 247sports. "I'm not on my phone all day, pretty much, and I open up dadgum Twitter to see a team in our conference lost their starting tailback. That keeps you up at night. Not all of the scrimmage will be live, but my plan currently, yes, there will be a portion of it live. In the portion of live, there will probably be a few people who don't participate."

Auburn gets its season underway on Aug. 31 when the Tigers host Alabama A&M.

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