Auburn football reportedly won't be changing course on their transfer portal plans at the quarterback position ahead of the 2024 season -- ergo, Hugh Freeze and Co. will remain plan-less when it comes to adding to the QB room according to AL.com's Matt Cohen. Hank Brown's flashes and Walker White's potential are the reasons why that's the case after Robby Ashford hit the portal himself and Payton Thorne disappointed mightily in the Music City Bowl after Freeze endorsed him as the team's starter next season.
"Thorne was a quarterback picked out by Freeze, but one taken late out of the transfer portal after spring practices had already ended," Cohen prefaced before saying, "From a pure development standpoint, Brown and White are far more tied to Freeze than Thorne — albeit Freeze has on multiple occasions been willing to put his full stance behind his transfer quarterback.
"It still does not appear as if Auburn will change course and add another transfer quarterback. Maybe Brown’s flash of potential alleviates a concern over depth following Ashford’s departure."
Hugh Freeze: Auburn football QB competition 'wide open' after Music City Bowl
Bowl games have largely lost their luster with the mass opt-outs and oversaturation/dilution of the importance of each contest, but the Music City Bowl proved to be a consequential happenstance for AU's QB room.
Freeze confirmed that Thorne's fifth sub-100-yard passing performance, coupled with Brown's 7/9, 132-yard passing showing in the fourth quarter of Maryland's 31-13 destruction of Auburn football, opened the competition up; making it "wide open," in fact.
"It's wide open," Freeze said of the QB position (h/t Montgomery Advertiser). "I think Hank has something to him for sure. The guy threw 42 touchdowns and one pick his senior year in high school. There's something to that. I'm constantly evaluating. Players, staff, everything. If we see that my evaluation has been wrong and we have to change gears and reevaluate to make us better, then that's the steps we should make. That position should be an interesting one, certainly, in spring practice."
Whether it was wide open or not for Cam Ward is unclear after the ex-Wazzu signal-caller was briefly linked to the Plains before declaring for the NFL draft. But it's certainly wide open enough for Thorne to consider the transfer portal himself after he seemingly fumbled the chance to be the definitive starter in 2024 with a historically great WR class incoming.