Observations: Cal 21, Auburn 14

This was supposed to be Auburn's "chance" to show tangible, on-field progress. Instead, it was yet another brutal day of offense in a loss.

QB Payton Thorne (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

This was supposed to be Auburn’s “chance.” This was supposed to be an opportunity for Hugh Freeze and his team to show progress — a tangible sign that the program was improving from where it was in a third straight losing season.

Last September, Auburn made the cross-country trip to California and struggled mightily on offense. The Tigers scored just two touchdowns and recorded 230 yards of offense in 60 minutes against a Cal team that, on paper, recruits in the talent neighborhood of Vanderbilt, Kansas, Syracuse, Georgia Tech and Minnesota.

A year later, after signing a top-10 recruiting class and overhauling the offensive staff to include more of Freeze’s former assistants, Auburn scored just two touchdowns and recorded 286 yards of offense in 60 minutes against Cal — inside its own stadium.

Instead of escaping with an ugly 14-10 road win, the Tigers suffered an even uglier 21-14 home loss in the rematch.

“Disappointing,” Freeze said to open his postgame press conference. “I would hope we were further along.”

Auburn had its opportunities. Oh, it had its opportunities. Cal missed a 25-yard field goal and punted on five straight possessions before missing yet another kick from further out. But Auburn got a touchdown on its opening drive and didn’t score any other points until it had gone down by two possessions in the fourth quarter.

The defense recovered from a slow start, giving the offense opportunities to fight back. The offense couldn’t capitalize on a single one and, actually, made things even tougher for the defense. Auburn committed five turnovers, including two that directly led to Cal touchdowns on shorter fields.

Those two touchdowns were the visitors’ only points after the opening drive.

Freeze and his staff took a calculated risk this offseason by not getting another transfer quarterback out of the portal. Instead, the Tigers allocated those resources elsewhere in their strong recruiting class and focused on what kind of second-year improvements Payton Thorne — one of the least efficient quarterbacks in the FBS in 2023 — could make with different pieces around him.

Thorne threw for more yards than he did last year against Cal, 165 to 94. But he also became the first Auburn quarterback to throw four interceptions in one game since 2007. His completion percentage was barely above 50%, and his yards per attempt actually took a step back from 6.7 to 6.1.

And Thorne had two more interceptions, which came on what would be the only scoring drives of the game for Auburn, get reversed by officials’ decisions. Just two weeks into the regular season, it’s looking like the quarterback gamble might backfire.

“You cannot turn the ball over five times and expect to beat, really, anybody,” Freeze said. “And we never got into any kind of sync offensively. And that’s very disappointing and frustrating to me, and it rests with me, and I've gotta figure that out for us.”

It’s just one game, and there are 10 more to go in the regular season. But this was the opportunity for Auburn to show its fans and the college football world at large that things might finally be different on the Plains after several down years.

Instead, the Tigers did what they’ve done so often in this rough on-field stretch for the program — lose a winnable game, largely because of their offense.

“It’s just embarrassing offensively, whenever you work so hard and your defense works so hard and your culture works so hard to remain together, and you just put a product out like that,” tight end Luke Deal said. “That’s just something we’re extremely embarrassed of and something we’ve got to flip very quickly, because we’re getting into SEC ball very soon.”

Here are four big Observations from Auburn’s 21-14 home loss to Cal, along with some Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Night.

QB Payton Thorne (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

Payton Thorne’s struggles vs. quality competition continue

Last season, Thorne completed 54.3% of his passes against FBS teams that finished with a winning record. (Cal wasn’t one of those.) He averaged 5 yards per attempt in those games and threw more interceptions than touchdowns. His quarterback rating was 99.13, and Auburn lost all seven of those matchups.

In his first matchup against an FBS opponent in his second season, Thorne completed 51.9% of his passes. He averaged 6.1 yards per attempt, as previously stated, but he had four interceptions and just one passing touchdown. His quarterback rating was 85.8, and Auburn lost as a double-digit favorite at home.

After his first pass to Jarquez Hunter was correctly ruled to have hit the ground before being intercepted and returned for a touchdown, Thorne completed five of his next eight passes for 103 yards and an incredible 15-yard touchdown to KeAndre Lambert-Smith on a third-and-10.

The rest of the way, Thorne went 8-18 passing for 62 yards, zero touchdowns and those four interceptions. That’s a completion percentage of 44.4% and a yards per attempt mark of just 3.4.