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Auburn football analyst gives Tigers sky-high 2023 expectations with caveat

Andrew Hughes

2–3 minutes

Auburn Daily's Matthew Jacobs has sky-high expectations for the upcoming 2023 Auburn football season -- with a caveat, however Mandatory Credit: The Montgomery Advertiser

The 2023 Auburn football season can be one that sees the Tigers contend for the 2023 SEC West title according to Auburn Daily’s Matthew Jacobs — though, it should be noted, there is a notable caveat.

Jacobs believes that with the right quarterback under center, AU is at a 10-win ceiling, but the wrong quarterback (aka Robby Ashford or Holden Geriner) would struggle to make the Tigers bowl eligible.

“With a good quarterback I put Auburn at 10-2,” Jacobs prefaced before saying, “If the quarterback role falls to someone currently on the team, I think 6-7 wins will be tough to aspire to.”

Payton Thorne looking like the next Auburn football transfer portal quarterback

Since the 2021 season, which was the first of the NIL and post-COVID era, the transfer portal has been a massive source of an immediate talent influx for programs across the country. For Auburn football, the quarterback position has seen an influx of talent every season, with T.J. Finley coming in 2021 and Ashford and Zach Calzada making their way to the Plains in January 2022. By that same token, it’s been an out for many, with Bo Nix, Dematrius Davis, Trey Lindsay, Calzada, and Finley all utilizing the transfer portal to abandoned East Central Alabama.

In the 2023 transfer cycle, there’s been a subtraction, and more than likely, there will be an addition. According to the ESPN College Football transfer portal Twitter account, Michigan State quarterback Payton Thorne will be that addition.

Sources tell me that Michigan State transfer QB, Payton Thorne, is heading to Auburn. Announcement coming soon @payton15thorne pic.twitter.com/cuZ9CYM5pN

— College Transfer Portal (@CollegeFBPortal) May 3, 2023

With Nebraska transfer Casey Thompson as his main competition, Thorne was seemingly billed the best fit by first-year head coach Hugh Freeze — who was unwilling to hand the starting job to anyone and may still be.

Thorne may need to beat out Ashford and Geriner, but if he does, perhaps the Tigers would move closer to Jacobs’ projection.

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auburn.rivals.com

AuburnSports - Portal target profile: Payton Thorne

Caleb Jones AuburnSports Portal target profile: Payton Thorne 11h ago

2–3 minutes

In the last four or five days, Auburn's quarterback situation has evolved even further.

T.J. Finley announced he's transferring out of the program, Nebraska's Casey Thompson was on campus and perhaps the biggest news, a new name entered the conversation. Michigan State's Payton Thorne entered the transfer portal Sunday, quickly becoming a name to watch as Auburn targets a portal quarterback.

Who is Thorne? What's he accomplished? Let's take a look at the quarterback's resume.

Originally from Naperville, Illinois, Thorne was rated as a three-star quarterback who spent over seven months committed to Western Michigan. However, on early signing day, he flipped to Michigan State and signed on with the Spartans as a member of their 2019 recruiting class.

As a true freshman, Thorne did not make an appearance in a game and opted to redshirt for the season.

The following season, he made three appearances off the bench and started one game, the season finale against Penn State. He went 22-for-39 with 325 yards passing, three touchdowns and had one pass intercepted in a 39-24 loss.

In 2021, Thorne won the starting job and led the Spartans to their highest win total in six years, winning 11 games as the starter. His completion percentage for the season was just over 60%, as he threw for a Michigan State single-season record 27 touchdowns and had 10 passes intercepted. Thorne also had 3,240 yards passing that year with a PFF grade of 77.6.

It's worth mentioning that Auburn has not had a quarterback throw for over 3,000 yards in a season since Jarrett Stidham did in 2017.

Thorne failed to duplicate his success in 2022, as his numbers dropped off from the previous season. He threw for 19 touchdowns and had 11 passes intercepted, while failing to reach the 3,000 yards passing mark. Nonetheless, he still recorded over 2,600 yards passing and saw his completion rate reach an all-time high of 62.5% with a PFF grade still in the 70s, at 71.8.

Auburn will have at least three scholarship quarterbacks on its roster in the fall, but the idea is to add a fourth from the portal. Right now, Thompson and Thorne appear to be the frontrunners.

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What the addition of Michigan State transfer QB Payton Thorne means for Auburn

Updated: May. 05, 2023, 2:12 p.m.|Published: May. 05, 2023, 1:50 p.m.

6–8 minutes

Hugh Freeze has been waiting for this moment, patiently, since arriving at Auburn at the end of last season.

The first-year coach, in his return to the SEC, has been in search of a quarterback who he felt would be the right fit for what Freeze wanted to accomplish offensively at Auburn with offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery. Auburn sought out a quarterback during the first transfer portal period in December and January, but the Tigers came up emptyhanded despite overtures to the likes of Coastal Carolina’s Grayson McCall and NC State-turned-Kentucky quarterback Devin Leary. So, Auburn went through spring with a trio of returning options competing for the starting quarterback job: Robby Ashford, T.J. Finley and Holden Geriner.

Read more Auburn football: Who’s out, who’s in? Breaking down Auburn’s post-spring roster movement

What T.J. Finley’s decision to transfer means for Auburn at quarterback

Auburn’s recruiting under Hugh Freeze is “100 to 1″ change from previous coaching staff

Even as Freeze felt “better” about the state of the quarterback room after A-Day, he still wanted to find a “no-brainer” target to pursue on the transfer market and compete for the starting job.

On Friday, he finally got that following a relatively quick pursuit. Michigan State transfer Payton Thorne, a multiyear starter for the Spartans who has two years of eligibility remaining, committed to Auburn shortly after noon.

The Tigers finally got their transfer quarterback, as the outlook of the position heading into year one under Freeze became a bit clearer.

Thorne entered the transfer portal Sunday, the final day of the post-spring period, and Auburn quickly worked to make inroads with the veteran Big Ten signal-caller. By Thursday, Thorne penned a farewell to Michigan State, as chatter began to pick up that Auburn was the favorite to land his services — with it seemingly being a matter of when, not if Freeze and Co. would land their top target in the portal.

Thorne wasted little time in making a decision, announcing his commitment and signing with the Tigers on Friday, instantly altering the landscape of Auburn’s quarterback room. On paper, he 6-foot-2, 210-pounder is a clear upgrade for the Tigers in several regards and should be considered the favorite to win the starting job in fall camp.

He’s a 60.9 percent career passer who has thrown for 6,494 yards and 49 touchdowns across 29 games, with 26 of those being starts for the Spartans. That includes all 25 games the last two seasons for Michigan State, a span during which he threw 46 touchdowns and 21 interceptions while completing 61.5 percent of his passes for 5,911 yards.

Thorne had his most efficient season last year, even as Michigan State took a step back under Mel Tucker. He completed a career-best 62.5 percent of his passes, which is markedly better than the 49.2 percent rate Ashford had last season for the Tigers. Freeze stressed throughout the spring that two of the most important traits he was looking for from Auburn’s quarterbacks were pocket presence and decision making — understanding situational football and limiting mistakes — and while the trio who went through spring made strides in those regards, Thorne seemingly checks those boxes off the bat.

Along with being a more efficient and polished passer than Auburn’s returning quarterback candidates, Thorne brings more experience to the table. For both Ashford and Geriner, last season was their first on-field experience at the college level; Ashford didn’t see the field at Oregon before transferring to Auburn, while Geriner was a true freshman and only played a handful of snaps while redshirting. Thorne, meanwhile, brings a wealth of experience—all of which has come at the Power 5 level in the second-best conference in FBS, the Big Ten.

A former three-star recruit who signed with Michigan State in 2019, Thorne redshirted during his first season with the Spartans before making his debut during the pandemic-impacted 2020 campaign. He appeared in four games that season while primarily backing up Rocky Lombardi in year one of the Tucker Era, though he made his first career start in the Spartans’ season finale against Penn State. Thorne threw for 325 yards, a trio of touchdowns and one interception in a loss, but it provided a glimpse of what was to come the next two seasons.

As Michigan State’s starter in 2021, Thorne led the Spartans to an 11-2 record while passing for 3,232 yards (23rd among FBS passers), 27 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, averaging 8.3 yards per pass attempt (35th nationally) while completing 60.4 percent of his attempts. For reference, those are numbers that haven’t been seen from an Auburn quarterback since Jarrett Stidham in 2017, when the former Baylor transfer threw for 3,158 yards and 18 touchdowns while completing 66.5 percent of his passes and averaging 8.5 yards per attempt.

Thorne followed up that breakthrough 2021 campaign as a starter with a solid 2022, even as the program struggled through a 5-7 campaign. He threw for 2,679 yards, 19 touchdowns and 11 interceptions with a 62.5 percent completion rate despite playing in an offense that lacked a true rushing threat, as the Spartans were 111th nationally in rushing yards (113 per game) and 89th in yards per carry (3.76). Still, Thorne’s numbers were considerably better than any of Auburn’s quarterbacks during a disastrous 2022 campaign, and now he’ll enter the fray for an offense that has one of the stronger running back rooms in the SEC, led by Jarquez Hunter.

With Thorne’s vast starting experience also comes a share of big-game exposure — seven games against ranked opponents the last two seasons — as well as a leadership aspect. Thorne was a two-time captain at Michigan State. That’s something that, while not the most important factor, should be taken into consideration for an Auburn team that is looking to establish a new culture under Freeze and a new coaching staff.

Thorne certainly seems to fit the description of a “no-brainer” transfer quarterback for Auburn, and while he’ll still have to stave off Ashford (who made note of the pickup Friday and appeared motivated by it) and Geriner for the starting job come August, he’s the type of addition who should raise the ceiling on Auburn’s expectations in year one of the Freeze era.

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.