Film Room: It's not ALL on the quarterback
Film Room: It's not ALL on the quarterback
Payton Thorne had another rough outing in Week 2. But the offensive fixes that Auburn can make are more than just a change under center.
QB Payton Thorne (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)
According to Hugh Freeze, quarterbacks and coaches “take a lot of the criticism when things don’t well — and some of it is deserved.”
Plenty of criticism has been lobbed toward Auburn starting quarterback Payton Thorne in the aftermath of the Tigers’ rough 21-14 home loss to Cal last Saturday.
It was yet another time Auburn struggled to throw the ball effectively against an FBS opponent with a winning record. The Tigers are 0-8 in those games with Freeze and Thorne, with the latter’s completion percentage at 53.8% and his yards per attempt at 5.38. Both of those numbers would have ranked in the mid-90s among qualified quarterbacks at 133 programs last season.
Auburn’s paltry offensive output in these games with Thorne at quarterback has Freeze at least contemplating a change this week. There is a disconnect between Practice Thorne and Game Thorne, Freeze says, and that’s a major problem.
But pinning the Cal loss squarely on the shoulders of Thorne and no one else — whether coach or player — is not fair. It’s also not representative of the sport of football, a team game where so many moving parts have to work well together.
No one is doubting that Auburn needs much better out of Thorne in order to beat quality opponents on its schedule. That’s why there have been calls for Hank Brown, almost a complete unknown at the collegiate level, to get his shot. It’s also why Brown is expected to get more quality reps in practice this week.
But when an offense struggles to the degree that Auburn did Saturday, inside its home stadium, while playing against a team that doesn’t recruit in remotely the same neighborhood, it’s a more widespread problem.
Much has been made of Thorne’s four interceptions, the bulk of five turnovers in the loss. (He also had two more passes that were originally ruled interceptions, which is an even tougher look for him.)
And while one of those picks directly led to a Cal touchdown on a short field, it’s worth noting that Auburn had six empty drives with no turnovers. The only two times it crossed Cal’s 40-yard line, it scored touchdowns.
Fixing Auburn’s offense starts with Freeze, as he himself said immediately after the Cal loss and his press conference two days later. He’s the highly paid head coach, and he’s someone who reengineered his offensive coaching staff to fit what he’s ran in the past. While he might not call every single play, this is, essentially, his offense. It’s imperative that he gets this right.
It continues to his assistant coaches, then down to his players. Thorne, as the multi-year starting quarterback and team captain who touches the ball on every snap, sits quite high on that hierarchy.
But it’s not all on Thorne, much like it wouldn’t all be on Brown if he struggled in that same role — or like it wasn’t all on Bo Nix during his time on the Plains. When an offense is underperforming at this level, there’s a lot of blame to go around.
In this week’s Film Room, let’s take a look at three big issues with Thorne and the offense against Cal and how they could get fixed.
After all, it’s just Week 2. There’s still a lot of football left to play in the season.