‘He's built a lot of trust’: Hugh Freeze, players give early impressions of Payton Thorne

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After transferring to Auburn, one of the first questions Payton Thorne had for his new head coach had nothing to do with football.
“Could I get someone to get him a picture of everyone that works in the building and their name,” Hugh Freeze recalled Thorne asking, “because he wants to know their name. He’s just got some intrinsic things about him that you really like that I know is going to enhance that room.”
It’s only been a matter of months that Thorne has been a Tiger, and there’s been little to discern in that time. Freeze reiterated that he hasn’t even been allowed to coach Thorne or watch him throw in that span. But the head coach and Auburn’s SEC Media Days player representatives gave some early returns of the Michigan State transfer, and they all had a rather similar message.
“He's got really good leadership qualities, and I think that a lot of the guys trust him,” tight end Luke Deal said. “That's the main thing whenever you come in and you're a new guy on a team, especially a team that has some older guys on it, like myself, Kam (Stutts), and a bunch of other guys on offense that have a lot of experience. So he's built a lot of trust, and that's a big thing for me.”
While Thorne’s early examples of leadership shone through in Nashville, both his experience and talents have been well-documented since his arrival in May. In three years at Michigan State, Thorne completed 525 passes for 6,493 yards and 49 touchdowns. He also played in 29 games, starting in 26 of them and logging 1,826 snaps.
Fall camp — which starts Aug. 3 — is nearly two weeks away, and it’s easy to discern Thorne as an early favorite to be Auburn’s starting quarterback. But both Deal and Stutts were insistent about the entire position group’s offseason while at the podium.
“All three of them are (really good),” Deal said. “And that's the thing, I mean, each guy brings a little bit different skill set to the fall, but we're going to check and see, and it's going to be fun.
“I'm an older guy. I've seen a lot of quarterback battles in the past. I've been around them with Bo (Nix) coming in as a freshman, with Joey (Gatewood) and Malik Willis, and all those guys. So I'm excited to see how it turns out.”