AUBURN | It’s all starting to come together for Payton Thorne.
The quarterback has thrived this spring with better alignment from Auburn’s coaching staff and offensive system, better personnel, especially at receiver, and an improved culture under second-year coach Hugh Freeze.
It kind of all spilled out a couple of weeks ago during a phone call with his father, Jeff Thorne, a former high school and college football coach.
“I was just telling him these last couple of weeks my confidence has been really rising,” said Thorne. “Just seeing it all come together right now — I’m around familiar guys, hearing familiar things from coach (Derrick) Nix and what he preaches. I feel the best I’ve felt, honestly, since 2021 right now.”
That 2021 season just happened to be Thorne’s best in college, completing 234 of 388 passes for 3,233 yards with 27 touchdowns and 10 interceptions for Michigan State. He also had four rushing touchdowns.
Perhaps the biggest reason for his newfound confidence is the Tigers adopting a more RPO-based offense that has worked for both Thorne and Freeze in the past. It’s also a big plus that new offensive coordinator Nix and new quarterback coach Kent Austin are both on the same page as Freeze.
Freeze and his staff made a minor adjustment to their RPO offense midway through spring that fits Thorne even better.
“I definitely did some of it at Michigan State. But then also, that is what I did in high school too. So I have a ton of reps at that and seeing it, and it’s really simple. It makes things easy,” said Thorne.
“There’s no, really, indecisiveness. In football, there’s always a little bit of gray area, but I feel like this is the best way of eliminating the most gray as possible. It’s pretty simple with what we’re hanging our hat on, our base.”
Perhaps the biggest storyline from Auburn’s spring practice has been the improvement at wide receiver thanks to the addition of two transfers — Robert Lewis and Sam Jackson — and two true freshmen — Cam Coleman and Bryce Cain.
Coleman, in particular, has been a standout in nearly every team period.
“Cam’s been great. He’s just getting better and better,” said Thorne. “I know he’s going to take an even bigger jump this summer because I know how he works and how hard he works. Bryce is doing a good job and our two transfers have been awesome too.
“Rob has been outstanding. He’s played both inside and outside, and has made plays at both. And then Sam, same thing with him. He’s played outside and played inside as well, and I think he looks really good. He’s going to keep getting more and more comfortable as time goes on.”
And it’s not just the additions to AU’s roster that have made a difference during the offseason. Thorne has noticed some addition by subtraction with some of the players that have left the program.
It’s created a more cohesive group and stronger culture.
“All the guys that you would get frustrated with, like, ‘Why don’t you want to be here? Why don’t you want to workout?,’ stuff like that… most of those guys are gone,” said Thorne. “And so that has been really refreshing. I feel like most of the guys, almost all of the guys, that are here now want to be here and they want to workout and they want to play well on the field. The energy has been off the charts at practice so far.
“Those young guys, the early enrollees, have been great because they’re a lot of good guys. Coach Freeze has recruited those guys for a while and they’re good people, they work hard and they’re the guys you want in your program. That has been fun.”
Spring practice concludes with the A-Day game Saturday at 1 p.m. CT on SECN+/ESPN+.
