After the 2023 Auburn football season, Hugh Freeze went back and forth on what to do about the quarterback position. Payton Thorne did not play his best football in his first year on the Plains, and the season ended on a sour note after a disastrous performance in the Music City Bowl.
There was talk that the Tigers may take another transfer quarterback and start from scratch, but no transfer was taken in either portal window. By spring, Freeze was confirming that the plan was for Payton Thorne to run it back in 2024.
This season should not look the same as the last, though, even with the same quarterback. Key staffers have been swapped out and replaced, and Freeze has stated that he is returning to an offensive system that he understands well and will be involved with. That, coupled with the increase in talent that has arrived on the Plains during the offseason, has allowed Freeze to maintain a high level of confidence in sixth-year senior Payton Thorne.
“I’m really confident,” Freeze said Tuesday, per Auburn Undercover. “I believe in him, I believe in his leadership. I meet with him every single week right now. He has a knowledge of the game that’s as good as I’ve been around for a quarterback. Now that we’ve gone back to some of the things I’m really familiar with, I think he’s going to be more comfortable.”
Freeze places high value on Thorne’s veteran presence and leadership skills, especially in a quarterback room containing multiple young guys with unlimited potential. Redshirt freshman Hank Brown showed off his skills in the Music City Bowl and has shown flashes of greatness during the spring and the A-Day game, and incoming freshman Walker White is expected to be a star.
“I thought Hank had a heck of spring, for sure, as did Holden,” Freeze said. “Walker, I think, has a ceiling that’s really, really high. It’s just that’s he’s really young, and we’ve got to see him develop.”
Thorne will get the chance to redeem himself this season and will play a key role in helping develop the future quarterbacks of Auburn football.
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