Cam Ward, Will Howard, Kyle McCord, Blake Shapen were all better options for Auburn football than Payton Thorne
CBS Sports' John Talty has come to the same realization that anyone who watched Hugh Freeze's Auburn football program lose 21-14 to Cal at home has: the Tigers would've been better off with a transfer portal quarterback than Payton Thorne.
A lot better. And they had the chance to land several players who have become difference-makers at different schools.
Talty daydreamed about what Auburn's offense would've looked like had it been Miami's Cam Ward, Ohio State's Will Howard, Syracuse's Kyle McCord, or Mississippi State's Blake Shapen under center instead of Thorne.
"Can you imagine Miami quarterback Cam Ward throwing to Lambert-Smith and Coleman downfield? Or having Will Howard execute the Freeze offense? Or even taking a chance on someone like Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord, who looks rejuvenated in Syracuse, or Baylor transfer Blake Shapen, who appears to be a good fit in Jeff Lebby's Mississippi State offense," Talty wrote.
We can imagine Ward looking like the second coming of Nick Marshall. Or Howard looking like a Bo Nix-lite. Or McCord looking like a northeastern Jarrett Stidham. We just can't have it.
Why? Because Freeze is more stubborn than a mule when it comes to starting Thorne.
Hugh Freeze's insistence on starting Payton Thorne can be his gravest mistake with Auburn football
Freeze has always entertained the idea of an open QB competition, but when it has come down to it, he hasn't trusted anyone but Thorne enough to run the offense since taking over the Tigers. Thorne has been better than Hank Brown, Holden Geriner, and Walker White in practice, but it's clear that when gametime comes, he's getting the yips. This was the same story with TJ Finley: incredible in practice but mistake-prone during games.
Freeze has been headstrong in his faith in Thorne. To a fault. The Tigers are 7-8 with Thorne under center and Tiger fans have had it with the Naperville, Illinois native as QB1.
If Freeze continues to stick with Thorne and the losses keep racking up, the head coach's potential fatal flaw on the Plains will be insisting he had the answer when the QB question kept being asked by everyone around him.