Auburn Tigers AD Hinted Payton Thorne's Days could be Numbered

Despite the public backing of Payton Thorne by Hugh Freeze during the summer, the winds changed quickly after another disastrous performance.

Auburn Tigers quarterback Payton Thorne faced a lot of public scrutiny before being benched, from outside and inside the program. / John Reed-Imagn Images

Just like that, a whirlwind of change swept through the Plains on Friday, and in its destructive wake everyone was left feeling pretty dazed and confused.

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze opting to yank the cord on his incumbent starter Payton Thorne in favor of relatively untested redshirt freshman Hank Brown was not entirely unexpected, but the timing was still shocking news to digest.

Just about 24 hours earlier, on Thursday, Tigers athletic director John Cohen sounded like a harbinger of doom for the trajectory of Thorne as the starting quarterback. Before the fans were made privy to the breaking news, those difficult personnel decisions were clearly incubating in the background.

"There is no doubt in my mind we're going to be a very, very good football team," Cohen said during a visit with Auburn Undercover live show at AU Club. "But there are some really tough personnel decisions Coach Freeze has to make for the betterment of our football team."

It goes without saying that Brown will especially relish the opportunity to lead a Tigers offense, because it's a unit that's pretty darn stacked with explosive pass catching weapons in particular. 

Nevertheless, it's a situation the young signal caller will quickly find out is most definitely laden with heady expectations. Quite simply, things now need to be turned back around in a very condensed time frame.

With the eminently beatable New Mexico Lobos up on deck later today, perhaps that's why Freeze has taken such drastic action to pull Thorne from under center this soon into proceedings.

After all, three home games remain on the slate before the Tigers spend the entire month of October on the road. Therefore, bedding Brown in will be substantially less stressful when done in front of the Auburn faithful, and of course, it will help to be  going against a swiss cheese looking Lobos defense to start off with.

Brown certainly has some very real added elements of accuracy to his skill set, the kind which most likely jumped out to Freeze, especially as he looks to get the offense humming like he so desires.

In the final analysis, stacking 73-points against Alabama A&M added up to approximately nada in the big picture of things. So when Thorne erratically coughed up four picks while losing to Cal, subsequently pulling the plug became a lot more feasible and workable.

Truth is, Cohen speaking out on Thursday also could point toward toxic levels of discord behind the scenes, if you were so inclined to dig a little deeper.

What Cohen is also well aware of is that quarterbacks are more easily dispensed with than head coaches - history bears witness to that reality. All of which means they have to back Freeze for now - well until they decide they absolutely cannot anymore that is.

"I think it's important for folks to realize: when you inherit something that might not be done the right way, it takes a little bit longer to get it going the right way," Cohen insisted.

Making a switch under center never seemed so important, who would have thought in their wildest dreams that the entire season would already be riding on how the raw and untested Brown might perform moving forward?

It might only be entering Week 3 action, but it's already turned into a wild ride folks.

Kickoff is 6.30 CT on ESPN2 and brings a sense of drama that might have been missing before Friday’s news.