SEC Network's Dari Nowkhah 'not as sold' on Payton Thorne winning Auburn's QB battle as others

Nowkhah thinks that Robby Ashford has a legitimate chance to be good underneath Hugh Freeze.

Lance Dawe | Jul 19, 2023

SEC Network's Dari Nowkhah 'not as sold' on Payton Thorne winning Auburn's QB battle as others /

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Auburn Tigers

The Tigers pulled their projected starting quarterback for 2023 out of the transfer portal.

Alongside 19 other valuable additions Hugh Freeze and his staff landed.

Payton Thorne, former Michigan State quarterback turned Auburn Tiger, is projected by a variety of outlets to be the Tigers' starting quarterback week one vs UMass despite not having taken a single rep in practice. Statistically, he's better than what the Tigers had coming back - Robby Ashford and Holden Geriner.

SEC Network's Dari Nowkhah joined Zac Blackerby on the Locked On Auburn podcast to discuss what Thorne brings to the team this fall.

Surprisingly, he's not as excited as most fans are about the new signal caller.

"He obviously was part of the best Michigan state team in a while, two seasons ago. He was also part of a down slide at Michigan state last season," Nowkhah said. "So it is, it's hard. It's hard to predict. I guess I'm not as sold on him being the starters as maybe you guys are necessarily."

Is it more about Thorne's issues, or incumbent Robby Ashford's upside?

"It's more of the unknown of Payton Thorne in that system," Nowkhah said. "You know, Robby hasn't necessarily played in it either, but it's a system where mobility is key, I think. Especially when you're kind of rebuilding an offensive front and you don't know what you have on the outside to throw to, I think the ability to avoid a little bit of a mess sometimes extend plays. I think that's invaluable. And I don't know that Robby is not a better option at that than Payton Thorne."

Freeze has had success with running quarterbacks at every stop of his head coaching tenure. With the stable of running backs the Tigers have coming back, there's reason to believe that Auburn will focus on the ground game in 2023.

"They will lean on the run game, I think, but at the same time, I think that that helps Robby as well," Nowkhah said. "I mean, you aren't going to ask Robby to go out and throw 32-for-40 and, for 350 yards. Can Robby get you, you know, 18-for-26 and 98 on the ground? Probably so. That might be good enough to win a lot of football games. We talk a lot on our network about these quarterback battles and the unknown situations. I think that's a very intriguing one. Robby is such a great athlete. I would think that there would be ways to, to get him on the field."

SEC Media Days is being hosted this year in Nashville, Tennessee for the very first time.

Auburn Daily is here covering Media Days all week long. You can catch updates, quotes, predictions and more here on auburndaily.com.