Uncertain key Auburn position ‘a tale we’ve been reading about forever’
Uncertainty at a key position for the Auburn football program, the quarterback room, is a tale “we’ve been reading about Auburn forever” according to Auburn Daily’s Lance Dawe — who had no optimistic spin on the Tigers QBs’ performance thus far.
“The rotation has been clunky, with no success and a clear lack of rhythm,” Dawe prefaced before saying, “It feels like a tale we’ve been reading about Auburn forever: they can’t find a solid, consistent quarterback to lead the offense.”
Payton Thorne, Dawe notes, has not impressed; sporting a 57.6 quarterback rating and a middling 4:3 touchdown-interception ratio through four games. Two of those picks, somehow, were against an FCS defense, Samford. To be fair to Thorne, his backup, Robby Ashford, has been even less accurate; throwing 10 incompletions in his 17 attempts.
The goodwill of the two-quarterback system has worn off for Auburn football
What never fails is the old expression, “If you have two quarterbacks, you have none.” The two-quarterback system that had Auburn football fans celebrating as Thorne led a fast-paced offense against UMass until Ashford took over in the red zone with his legs has lost all of its goodwill after the season’s first loss. To be fair, the goodwill was lost well before that when the Thorne-Ashford one-two punch missed the target with a 94-passing yard night against Cal in a narrow Week 2 win.
Hugh Freeze seemingly schemed his way into making his transfer and incumbent starter happy, but it didn’t hold up when the competition grew tougher. Now, there are questions of whether or not there’s a single QB who can sustain a six-win pace as the schedule grows unfathomably difficult; with Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State on the docket next.
If there’s not, there will be plenty of pressure on either 2024 commit Walker White or whoever Freeze and Co. pursue in the transfer portal to silence a story of struggles under center — though to be fair, Bo Nix was clearly a possible answer who was squandered during his three years at AU — that has peskily persisted on the Plains.