Payton Thorne had a team to win over when he arrived to Auburn over the summer. So he showed up with a collection of photos of his teammates. He wanted to make sure he learned their names.

“I don’t think you can really lead within an organization if you don’t know most people’s names,” Thorne said Wednesday, his first media appearance since arriving at Auburn. “If you walk past somebody in the hallway, I just feel uncomfortable if I don’t know their name. I’d be lying if I said I know everybody’s name already.”

Thorne said his guide was a stapled sheet of about four or five pages. Each player had a headshot, name, phone number and position.

He hasn’t figured all those names out yet. He’s still learning to pronounce running back Brian Battie’s name — it’s Bat-tee, for the record. But this is his way of becoming a leader quickly on a team he didn’t know.

And frankly, leadership was the reason why head coach Hugh Freeze picked the Michigan State transfer to be Auburn’s starter to begin the season.

But it wasn’t a straight path for Thorne.

Thorne was the first quarterback to take snaps for Auburn in the opening practice of the preseason. That was his first practice with Auburn after announcing his transfer to Auburn in May.

He was expected to win the job upon his decision to come to Auburn, but his arrival meant a battle that seemed to center around him and incumbent starter Robby Ashford. Sophomore Holden Geriner made a push for the job, too, and Freeze called him the most talented thrower of the trio.

Freeze said throughout the summer he hoped to narrow down his quarterback battle by the fifth practice of fall camp which closely led into the team’s first scrimmage. By that point, Freeze hadn’t made up his mind in full, but he indicated to Thorne he led the battle to see how he would react in the scrimmage.

It didn’t go well. Freeze said Thorne pressed in that game. That led to Freeze saying he needed to rethink things with his quarterback decision.

“Scrimmage one I didn’t have a great day,” Thorne said. “I felt like I had been practicing well and then in the scrimmage, I made a couple of mistakes that I hadn’t been making in practice. Some things I just hadn’t been doing which is frustrating. Couple of other things that happened in the scrimmage, it was just a frustrating day.”

There was no apparent separation in the quarterback battle until the Tuesday after the scrimmage when reporters saw Thorne and Ashford rotating with the first-team offensive line and Geriner working on the other side of the field.

Two days later, Freeze made up his mind. Thorne was the guy.

“It was good to hear that from Coach and have that conversation with him,” Thorne said. “To hear that and kind of get past the whole competition of everything. Hearing about it and wondering about it — obviously I’m always going to be competing and trying to play my best so that doesn’t change, but to be able to know when you’re going in practice, what group you’re with, I think that definitely helps.”

To Thorne, winning the job took a combination of establishing his leadership role both on and off the field, but also meshing with a new offense and scheme. Thorne said he and his dad spent much of his visit watching film and discussing the scheme. Freeze and offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery both stated earlier in the summer that Thorne’s commitment to studying tape stood out immediately.

Coming from Michigan State, which runs a bit more of an old-school “pro-style” offense, Thorne had to adjust to the different tempo Auburn runs. Thorne said the Spartans sometimes ran the run-pass-option scheme that Freeze and Montgomery utilize.

“It’s fun for me to play for an offensive head coach and to have a lot of people devoted to quarterback and quarterback development and all that stuff,” Thorne said. “It just wasn’t the staple of the offense I was in. Just getting used to it, talking to Coach, trying to learn the best I can what he wants and what he’s looking for and what he’s had success with in the past. There’s differences, some similarities. I’m just trying to go play well.”

Thorne’s work ethic made him sure he’d handle the football part of the job. He seemed confident in his track to winning the quarterback job during his roundtable session with reporters Tuesday.

So he focused on being himself, he said. He said he first tried to prove himself to teammates who were already here and build relationships with them off the field. It worked.

He’ll have to make sure he learns everyone’s names now.