What Auburn players said about Payton Thorne’s performance against Cal
Payton Thorne’s four-interception performance was arguably the biggest story of Auburn’s 21-14 loss to Cal on Saturday.
After he helped lead Auburn down the field for a touchdown on the first drive, he never settled back into the game and Auburn could never regain control.
While Thorne finished with four interceptions, it was almost six after a pick-six was overturned due to the ball hitting the ground and an interception in the endzone was called back for a bang-bang pass interference call.
Head coach Hugh Freeze didn’t want to say much about Thorne’s performance, stating that he wanted to watch the film before discussing Thorne’s performance in detail.
Despite Auburn’s offense not producing much after the first drive, Thorne said he didn’t see much change in Cal’s defense.
“Obviously I missed a couple throws today that I feel like I make on the regular,” he said. “I don’t think the defense did too much different. They gave us a couple blitzes that we had only seen once on film. That’s a credit to them.”
Wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith said he noticed less press coverage from Cal’s corners after the first drive. Auburn was able to gash Cal through the air on the first drive after Cam Coleman beat his man down the sideline, but Auburn was never able to create another big pass play after that.
When asked about Thorne specifically, Lambert-Smith wasn’t ready to give up on his quarterback yet.
“Let him know that the team is behind him, that we still trust him,” Lambert-Smith said when asked what he told Thorne after the game. “It’s not just him, it’s the offense, it’s a collective group. We just gotta execute at a high level. We just didn’t do that.”
Thorne is one of Auburn’s captains. With the leadership role he owns on the team, moving on and not letting this performance carry over to next week is extremely important.
When fellow captain Luke Deal was asked about Thorne’s attitude, he hadn’t lost any confidence in how his quarterback can lead the team.
“Payton is a strong dude. He is. He’s a competitor. He’s been playing football for a really long time. College football is a really tough sport and he’s been doing it for a while. So, I have no worries about Payton,” Deal said.
“It’s early in the season; it’s only Week 2,” Thorne said. “Thankfully this year, the season’s not over. It’s go-time now and time to respond.”
Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m