‘Significant’ offseason bump has Auburn QB shockingly favored to start

Auburn football quarterback Robby Ashford is favored to start under center at the start of the 2023 season over Michigan State transfer Payton Thorne, and Auburn Daily’s Lance Dawe believes it’s because of a “significant bump” in the Hoover product’s play this offseason.

“It can be easily argued that Ashford was not the problem on the offense last season – rather extremely poor decision making from the coaching staff and one of the worst offensive lines Auburn has seen this century – but it is clear that he’s still very raw as a passer and would need a significant bump this offseason in order for him to claim the starting job over Thorne in fall camp,” Dawe prefaced before saying, “Apparently, Vegas thinks that bump is coming” in reference to the latest sportsbook trends.

If Thorne hasn’t been able to get adjusted to Philip Montgomery’s offense — or, as Hugh Freeze intended with the transfer addition, Ashford was pushed to his full potential and grew into an offense better suited for his skill set as a true RPO threat — then we could see a ground-and-pound run-heavy attack from the Tigers in the fall.

Robby Ashford, unlike others, embraced the Auburn football QB competition

The idea of Freeze wanting to add another quarterback to his room following the Tigers’ A-Day spring game may have driven certain signal-callers out of the room, but Ashford always embraced the increased competition.

“Let’s work. Iron sharpens iron!” That right there is how a leader takes the news of a veteran arm with a proven track record in college football’s second-best conference.

Based on everything we’ve seen from Ashford since he’s made his way to the Plains, mainly his vast improvement under Cadillac Williams and his fight to even get the starting nod from Bryan Harsin while the unpopular Boise native was still around, it’s not a shock to see his work ethic parlayed into him being favored as QB1 in 2023.