Auburn's Payton Thorne inside Top 10 of The Athletic's QB Ranking Model

A Quarterback Ranking Model has Auburn's very own Payton Thorne in the Top 10, with Jordan Travis and Michael Penix Jr. outside of it.

Author:
Shel Hickman
Publish date:
Aug 30, 2023 6:43 PM EDT

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Auburn Tigers

An article was posted to “The Athletic” today that described a College Quarterback Ranking Model created by Cooper Klaus. This model has ranked quarterbacks on a multitude of different statistics and contributing factors.

“My model splits out passing and rushing into two components with their own projections. I then calculate a weighted score from the median projections, with 85-percent weight on a quarterback’s passing and 15 percent on their rushing to produce the rankings,” explains Klaus.

Klaus also states that his model is ‘hardly infallible and should be considered a starting point for debate." There are many issues with the model and the ranking of the quarterbacks in my opinion, but the model is only using the data that’s available to it at this given moment. The top ten follows as such:

1. Caleb Williams - USC

2. Cameron Rising - Utah

3. Will Rogers - Mississippi State

4. Taulia Tagovailoa - Maryland

5. Drake Maye - UNC

6. Bo Nix - Oregon

7. Kedon Slovis - BYU

8. Sam Hartman - Notre Dame

9. Payton Thorne - Auburn

10. J.J. McCarthy - Michigan

Keeping in mind all the imperfections of this model, Payton Thorne finds himself at 9th and ranks as the 2nd-best quarterback in the SEC. While Thorne’s name doesn’t hold national Top 10 notoriety, the stats and his success rate at Michigan State aren’t something to scoff at.

Notable names that did not reach the top ten:

13. Michael Penix Jr. - Washington

32. Jordan Travis - Florida State

31. Riley Leonard - Duke

48. Devin Leary - NC State