Hugh Freeze Doubles Down on Auburn QB Payton Thorne

Auburn Tigers head coach seems to be settling on senior Payton Thorne after watching each of his signal callers struggle.

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze hitched his wagon to quarterback Payton Thorne during the offseason. / John Reed-Imagn Images

After sleeping on things, it would appear that Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze is still of the belief that he should take the fall for Payton Thorne's calamitous fourth-quarter pick-six on Saturday night.

Sort of.

"In hindsight, I wish I would have just controlled it, ran it and punted it," Freeze said to reporters on Monday. "That's what the film says. ... Let me control it and let's run the ball, punt it, and let's play defense."

Beyond the obvious damage done to the win- loss column for Auburn, it's pretty obvious that Thorne is back to battling the turnover demons. It's not exactly backing the starter by saying "I made a mistake letting him throw the ball."

But Freeze is trying to prop up his incumbent signal caller, especially as the trip to face No. 5 ranked Georgia looms large.

Ironically, Thorne certainly did enough to suggest on Saturday that he can play well enough to win some games, but if only he could avoid the big costly errors.

But what has emerged slowly from the chaos, is that Freeze is shifting toward going with Thorne as the starter the rest of the way.

"I thought he laid it on the line for our kids, the team and the program," Freeze declared. "He sacrificed his body, gave himself up many times. He wishes he had one throw back, but he laid it on the line for us and the team."

Reaching for backup Hank Brown at this juncture once again would put Freeze seriously on the hot seat, it's not a move he could rationally make with any kind of real conviction.

At least having a dog with plenty of fight in his bones always counts for something with a veteran coach. That being said, the truth is the duo of Freeze and Thorne have dug a hole so deep they absolutely must join forces to climb back out of it.

To be honest, the chances are that Thorne is simply hard wired to cough the ball up at the most inopportune moments, and recent history suggests as much.

On the flip side, Freeze has been fostering some kind of coaching "God Complex." it's one where somehow he feels mistakes can be mitigated from the sideline if he takes command more.

Presumably that will entail holding the leash on Thorne ever more tightly, especially when it comes to the games most pivotal moments? Freeze is likely to take the O (option) out of his run-pass play calls during crunch time.

That's of course when a head coach at any level of football needs to trust in his field general the most, so we will see how that sits with Thorne moving forward.

We've reached that stage of proceedings where we are throwing everything at the wall and seeing if it sticks, and with the Tigers currently listing at 2 - 3, should we really be that surprised?