The Payton Thorne who sat in a plastic white chair in the parking lot outside Vanderbilt’s FirstBank Stadium was a much looser version of the typical version of the Auburn quarterback seen in postgame interviews.

At the end of the Georgia game in September, Thorne slammed the door of the media room in frustration as he left. In midweek press conferences throughout the season, he’s frequently played it reserved with many of his cards near his chest.

Maybe it was the high school feel he described of playing amid the construction at Vanderbilt’s stadium, but on this night a relaxed Payton Thorne finally had the looks of a confident quarterback. He even broke a smile.

In Auburn’s 31-15 win over Vanderbilt on Saturday, Thorne didn’t rotate at all with backup quarterback Robby Ashford. After instability had defined the quarterback position for the vast majority of this season, Auburn has relied on Thorne and just Thorne the past two weeks and had its best two displays of offense against Power 5 opponents this season.

That is why Thorne, finally, looks comfortable.

“It helps with rhythm and being able to just know that you’re going to be out there I guess is the biggest thing,” Thorne said after the win. “Just keep rolling and I’m going to keep trying to put my best foot forward no matter what. Hopefully, we’ll keep winning.”

For much of the season, head coach Hugh Freeze has weighed his desire to stick with one quarterback in hopes they could find a rhythm, with his unwavering belief in Ashford having a role in this offense.

That role, Freeze has said, can change on a week-to-week basis. In some cases, that package has been as expanded as running the first drive of the game in Auburn’s eventual loss against Ole Miss. In others, it’s been as small as him not seeing the field at all against Vanderbilt.

Rotating the two certainly wasn’t working, and Thorne never found consistency or confidence as a passer. After the Texas A&M game, Freeze said he was working to rebuild Thorne’s pocket presence and confidence.

So over the last two weeks, Thorne was given the chance to prove he was the starter Auburn desired him to be. He hasn’t been perfect, but with the rotation now being one thing removed from his mind, Thorne has thrown for 230 yards and 194 yards in the past two games — by far his most against Power 5 teams this year.

Auburn had maybe its most dynamic passing game of the year with regard to big plays. The performance could be described as boom-or-bust, but this was the first time Auburn has seen any boom this season. There was a 53-yard touchdown pass to tight end Rivaldo Fairweather, a 39-yard catch and run to Ja’Varrius Johnson and a 23-yard shot play to Jay Fair.

“Should have been more,” Freeze said. “That’s the sad thing.”

Auburn receivers were officially credited with five drops, and that number may be kind to the Thorne’s pass catchers. One the drops, on a deep ball over the middle to Omari Kelly, cost Auburn a sure-thing touchdown.

The receiver room struggles have been, and continue to be an issue for Auburn, but the quarterback room hasn’t lost confidence in them.

Nor was Thorne perfect, either. He threw an incredibly ill-advised screen pass out of his own endzone which turned into an interception returned for a touchdown. He certainly should have had a second interception on a ball lobbed into the Vanderbilt endzone that a Commodores defender dropped.

“We still left some out there,” Thorne said. “So that’s a little bit frustrating, but it’s good to be a little bit frustrated after a win. So our defense played outstanding today. It should have been zero for a while there. I gifted them seven.”

And while the offense knows there’s still more it can improve, it also is the most confident the whole group has appeared in weeks.

Fairweather has assured for weeks that this offense would figure things out. And for weeks, things definitely were not figured out. He believed the offense had looked dynamic in spring and fall practices.

But that success in practice never translated over to games.

Then came the beginning of the Ole Miss game. It was in that moment, that very first drive of the game even though Auburn didn’t score, where Fairweather believes things clicked.

From that point forward, after Freeze had suggested that he should use an up-tempo offense more after the loss to LSU on Oct. 14, Auburn finally started to use tempo more frequently. Auburn had gone away from that because coaches felt it was best for the personnel on the roster.

Auburn had gone away from tempo, too, after a fall camp in which the fast pace of the offense had been discussed as a possible strength.

“That’s how we get it ticking, get tempo and go fast,” Fairweather said. “It’s just us going back to what we used to do and come together as an offense. We’re going out there and making plays for our team. It’s amazing, man. It gives everyone confidence around the whole team: Play confident, play fast, play with speed.”

But when the tempo was re-inserted, Auburn once again found more success — and confidence, too.

“Us being on the same page is going to be dangerous out there, man,” Fairweather said. “We came together as an offense and made big plays, man.”

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