Auburn Tigers QB Payton Thorne Opens Up on Working with Hugh Freeze

Auburn Tigers quarterback Payton Thorne lifts the lid on what It's like to work with Hugh Freeze and bounce back from being benched.

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze and quarterback Payton Thorne have had more than one disagreement in 2024. / John Reed-Imagn Images

Down on the Plains, pretty much everyone has been on quarterback watch ever since spring practices got underway for the Auburn Tigers. The hope was an upgraded surrounding cast would bring the best out of senior Payton Thorne.

As things have turned out, sheer hope has only carried the 2 - 3 Tigers so far, but that's not nearly far enough.

The combination of Payton Thorne and Hank Brown have created a slew of interceptions, and it's put the Tigers behind the eight ball heading to No. 5 Georgia on Saturday.

Head coach Hugh Freeze has worn his frustrations on his sleeve throughout the mayhem. Quite frequently, his frustrations have been directed towards Thorne himself.

Thorne's inner serenity has equipped him well to handle the Freeze outbursts with plenty of good grace and dignity.

"You know, I have been around that, you know, having my dad as a coach, obviously, throughout my life, he was always the most calm during football," Thorne told reporters this week. "The worst was basketball. Oh, my gosh. My mom wouldn’t sit by him in basketball games for whatever reason. It was basketball, but, yeah, I’ve dealt with that before.

"So, you know, when you get into competitive environments like that, you know, sometimes your emotions get a little hot, like you said, and so that can go both ways. And, you try to calm down the best you can and just listen to what coach is saying. You know, he’s hearing what I’m saying, and we try to get on the same page. So, you know, I’m not really worried about that at all.”

For as much as Freeze has clearly bristled at times during his often ill-tempered dealings with Thorne, it's now emerging clearly that the Tigers head coach is going to have to embrace his veteran passer once again.

So now we find both men attempting to claw their way back out of a crater created through mutual incompetence. Both Freeze and Thorne have dirty hands when it comes to Auburn's slow start.

That's the reality of a troubling situation, but at least Freeze has busily been building bridges with Thorne. By trying to buffer Thorne from the blame that's not been shy in arriving on his quarterback's doorstep, the veteran coach has clearly softened his approach in recent days.

"I'll tell him I love him," Freeze answered about Thorne after the Oklahoma loss. "We'll go back to work and try to correct, put him in better situations so we can finish off a game like this."

While that's all well and good, it's the Tigers signal caller who's still trying to piece himself back together after being benched in favor of Brown prior to the Arkansas game, but he's getting there.

“Yeah, obviously you try to stay as consistent as you can with your preparation and everything and your mindset, but like I said before, that’s not realistic all the time," Thorne admitted. "When you’re in different situations, you’re going to have different feelings, different emotions throughout that time. And so I dealt with those things, but I did my best to learn from whatever the situation was, whether it is what it was.

Like I said, I feel like I took a good mindset. I try my best to take a good mindset with it and take what I can learn from it, and so I feel good with where I’m at right now.”

Thorne has already displayed that he's fully capable of being a strong and stable influence within the program. Certainly within the Tigers locker room, Thorne's capability of bouncing back mentally is not really in question amongst his teammates.

Furthermore, Thorne knows that if he's going to leave a legacy behind after he departs the college ranks, it will be achieved by nurturing the next gen of talent like Cam Coleman through some of the early struggles they're experiencing.

“I told him it’s the first drive (of Coleman’s early drop against Oklahoma). It’s early in the game. Just put it behind him. Don’t dwell on it. You got a whole game in front of you," Thorne revealed. "You can be pissed off about it after the game, but for right now, just put it behind you and focus on what we’re doing for the next drive. He’s obviously a very talented player. That’s a catch he’s made a million times in his career.

"If you start thinking about it too much, you’re worse off than if you just scrap it and take accountability for it, which he always does, and then move on. It’s not too complicated, it’s a mental game sometimes."

Mental fortitude comes as standard issue armor at a major program, especially when the wounded Georgia Bulldogs are next up on the schedule.