That looked a lot better. Auburn closed out a 45-13 win over Samford in a game where the offense rolled — and Payton Thorne had easily his best game in an Auburn uniform. Arguably it was the best game of his collegiate career.

This wasn’t a perfect performance, but it was sure better than last week against Cal. Here are three takeaways.

Auburn threw the ball a lot more. Was it better?

It took all about five minutes into the second half of this game for Payton Thorne to surpass his total completions and passing yards for the entire season combined.

He completed 19 of 31 passes for 235 yards total in Auburn’s first two games. By halftime tonight, he had 18 completions for 232 yards. He got his 20th completion and passed 235 yards on Auburn’s first drive of the second half.

Hugh Freeze talked about more consistency for Thorne and that comes with lessening a QB rotation that Freeze called unhealthy.

Though he may have overdone it in some places.

On two different drives in the first half, Auburn had the ball inside the Samford five-yard line and proceeded to throw the ball three straight times. On the first drive, Auburn’s first drive of the game, the third down pass was forced by a false start penalty that pushed Auburn back. But Thorne threw a very interception on a pass intended to Shane Hooks, but Hooks was never open.

The second time, Auburn was forced into a field goal.

Thorne also made another bad decision in the first half on a deep ball into double coverage which was intercepted.

There were mistakes, sure, but as a whole, the passing game did look a lot better from a statistical standpoint. Auburn definitely seemed to force it a bit, but this game likely gave Thorne some much-needed confidence.

Now, that said: What’s the plan with Robby Ashford?

Ashford didn’t play at all in the first half. He came inside the five-yard line twice in the second half before Auburn pulled away convincingly. He was the full-time QB later in the fourth quarter.

Freeze has said he wants less QB rotation, but he also wants to give Robby Ashford a role. Those two things may be mutually exclusive, however, based on Auburn’s play calling. If Freeze has to pick one going forward, what is that choice?

This game may have created more questions about Robby Ashford’s role, if any, than it does about Auburn’s ability to throw the ball. In what was effectively garbage time, Ashford did throw a 32-yard touchdown to a wide-open Micah Riley.

This was a weird game, man. Mostly cause of the next bit:

Auburn also could not run the ball — okay, other than Payton Thorne

Part of Auburn’s pass-happy night could be a product of wanting to get the passing game going.

It also could be because Auburn could not run the ball.

Now let’s take Payton Thorne aside. He had more rushing yards than any Auburn quarterback since 2013. He led Auburn in rushing and scored two rushing touchdowns. Auburn had more than 200 rushing yards and he had more than half of them. Most of his yards came in the second half, though, when the result of the game wasn’t really in question. He finished with 123 yards on 11 carries.

He had more than 400 total yards of offense.

Only one other running back had more than three yards per carry (Brian Battie) and he had only five carries. Auburn had six total rushers.

Auburn had more than five yards per carry as a team purely from skewed Payton Thorne data. And granted, Thorne ran the ball well, but it was another rusty day from Jarquez Hunter who had just 37 yards on 11 attempts.

Auburn had 86 yards on 26 carries from its actual running backs. That’s barely over three yards per attempt.

The offensive line didn’t seem to get much push, either. Auburn actually ran the ball more times than it threw it when all was said and done — though that does include some Thorne scrambles on designed pass plays.

Auburn got stuffed on a fourth-and-one rush near midfield in the first half.

But Samford gave up more than 300 rushing yards a week ago. This wasn’t good enough from Auburn’s deep running back room.

Rivaldo Fairweather is a Capital D Dude

So I think Auburn learned that targeting Fairweather is a good idea based on how he saved Auburn last week.

Fairweather had five catches for 57 yards. And multiple of them were in the middle of ~a lot~ of contact.

This one, easily, was the highlight:

Freeze has talked about how productive Jay Fair and Ja’Varrius Johnson have been this season. But he always joked about how he wishes they had a bigger catch radius than their sub-6-foot frames allow.

Fairweather is the opposite. Want catch radius? He’s got it.

Auburn is still working on finding reliable weapons to throw to, especially on a night when it tried so hard to find its passing game.

Chalk Rivaldo Fairweather up as a tried-and-true choice.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]