Two schools.

Two QB battles.

Two completely different strategies for finding a resolution.

That’s the short version of the contrasting dynamics between the ongoing competition in Tuscaloosa and Auburn where white smoke was spotted Thursday.

Michigan State transfer Payton Thorne was declared the winner of the derby by first-year coach Hugh Freeze. News of the verdict leaked Thursday afternoon — a few hours before Freeze confirmed it in a previously-scheduled news conference. Even the way he noted the information puncture with a folksy smile differed greatly from a hypothetically mirrored scenario to the northwest.

But in mid-August, it’s all about the psychology of competition. Freeze and Nick Saban simply take different paths to Sept. 2 openers against Group-of-5 visitors.

At Auburn, Freeze considered the performance from last Saturday’s scrimmage. The logic almost sounded counterintuitive until you consider the mental side of things. Returning starter Robby Ashford actually out-performed Thorne, Freeze said Thursday, but it’s not that simple.

“I felt like it was Payton going into the scrimmage and then in the scrimmage, I thought he pressed too much and I didn’t like that,” Freeze said. “I can’t have the guy — and I think that’s one of the reasons I’m at this point — I want to see now what he does now (knowing) ‘I’m the guy and I can go back to relaxing and playing within the system.’”

Freeze made it clear, Thorne has no reason to feel the hook could be coming from the dugout.

“The quarterback situation is set going into UMass,” Freeze said. “I mean, it’s set. It’s done. (Thorne) will get all the reps with the 1s, Robby will get most of the reps with the 2s and Holden (Geriner) will get his share some. I feel like that’s where we are and that stuff doesn’t change unless injuries happen.”

Sounds settled.

In Tuscaloosa, not quite. And that’s hardly news if you’ve followed any Saban quarterback battle. In his orbit, the competition never ends.

Even the winner isn’t necessarily the winner. Never forget Blake Barnett took the first snap of the 2016 season. He played the first two possessions that night against USC before a true freshman named Jalen Hurts entered the game.

That’s another difference. With Freeze, there’s a history of how he handled competitions elsewhere but Saban has a well-established precedent for how things go. Two years after Hurts claimed the job as a true freshman, Saban’s first official declaration of Tua Tagovailoa winning the job over the incumbent came after the season-opening win over Louisville. That said, it was clear where that situation was headed in August even if the words were never spoken.

Mac Jones being named QB1 before the 2020 opener was the exception in the upside down of the 2020 season.

At least publicly, little has been said to differentiate the status of Jalen Milroe, Ty Simpson and Tyler Buchner. Milroe, the fill-in starter when Bryce Young got hurt last fall, was getting the first-team snaps at the only practice observed by outside eyes at Fan Day. But that was Aug. 5 in the third practice of the preseason so there’s plenty of room for evolution since.

Familiar talking points have dotted the August practice routine as Saban continues to implore participants in the three-man race to “take the bull by the horns.”

His Tuesday comments were the most illustrative of his feelings and the difference in approach from Auburn’s.

“You know, what I tell the quarterbacks, it’s not up to the coaches,” Saban said. “You’re looking over your shoulder to see if the coach is going to do this or that. How about you forcing me to play you, force us to play you. When you get your reps and you get a chance to play, you play so good we don’t have any choice but to play you, rather than worrying about all this other stuff.”

The schedule structure also allows for more experimentation deeper into the calendar. Before last year, Alabama played a high-profile Power 5 team every Labor Day weekend so there was more of a backstop to making that call. This year, no disrespect to Middle Tennessee State, but that holiday weekend visitor will afford Saban and new offensive coordinator Tommy Rees a live-action audition before No. 11 Texas comes to town a week later.

The Blue Raiders enter the season No. 93 in the CBS Sports ranking of all 133 FBS teams. UMass, the first visitor to Auburn, is 133rd coming off a 1-11 season with the lone win coming over an FCS Stony Brook that finished 2-9.

So there’s room to experiment before Texas comes to Tuscaloosa and Auburn heads west for a 9:30 p.m. CT howl-at-the-moon kickoff at Cal.

Both will start a quarterback that evening. That’s a certainty.

How they arrive at that point exemplifies the contrast in approach between the two coaches and programs that share little more than a state and conference.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.