At this point, after this many years, it feels like I'm repeating myself, almost plagiarizing from previous columns from seasons past. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Over and over.

The struggles for Auburn's offensive line have remained the same since Gus Malzahn was wearing a sweater vest on the west sidelines. On Saturday, in pass protection situations, it became ugly. Payton Thorne, for all of his struggles, almost didn't have a chance to get situated in the pocket. He was protected as if the offensive linemen had a New Orleans-type bounty deal with the other team. They protected him as well as I did my liver from a few Bud Lights after I finished writing last night.

We've seen some bad performances before, but this wasn't supposed to be the case heading into the first game against a Power Five school in 2024. Sure, we knew there were problems on the left side of the line. Percy Lewis, the key addition to the offensive line this offseason, has been nothing short of a bust. However, Tyler Johnson was seemingly ready to take his place at left tackle after a strong fall camp.

That fell by the wayside as quickly as Thorne had to look for room to scramble. I don't pay attention to PFF grades often, but I know that grading out as a 5 out of 100 in pass protection is almost impossible to achieve. But there it is, in bold writing.

Let's give Cal some credit. The Golden Bears did a good job mixing up looks, disguising what they were about to do and causing confusion among the Auburn offensive line. But it's not as if Cal is a so-called "DLU." If the front five for Auburn struggle like this against the Bears, then I am scared of what it will look like against Georgia, Missouri and Alabama. Actually, you can add any team to that list based on what we saw last night.

The box score might show that Cal finished with only three sacks, but it seemed like a lot more. With every dropback by Thorne, he was immediately surrounded by at least two guys who had just gone through the revolving door that was the Tigers' offensive line.

But, like I said, this is nothing new. And while it was only some of the offensive line that struggled, the unit has neither meshed nor come together as needed. It's become such a running story that you could type "Auburn offensive line" into ChatGPT and it would produce close to the same story as this.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.