Word on the street is that Payton Thorne ultimately left Michigan State because he didn’t like how Mel Tucker was handling the open quarterback competition going into the 2023 season. Thorne, purportedly, wasn’t informed ahead of spring practice and instead found out that the job was no longer guaranteed to be his that same time as everyone else, when Tucker announced the news at a press conference in April.
Thorne recently appeared on the On To Victory podcast, an Auburn football-centric program co-hosted by former Tigers quarterback Jason Campbell, and didn’t specifically address those rumors. He did, though, obliquely touch on the topic while offering other things that factored into his decision.
Thorne also mentioned the opportunity to play for an offensive-minded head coach in Hugh Freeze was a major factor in his decision to transfer to Auburn.
“It’s gonna be really beneficial to me, I feel like, and that’s a big reason why I decided that this was the move for me,” he said.
I noticed that this was conspicuously absent from Thorne’s list of reasons behind his transfer from MSU to Auburn.
Anyway, onward and upward for Thorne. He leaves MSU having set the school’s single-season passing touchdown record with 27 in 2021, when he helped the Spartans to an 11-2 record and a Peach Bowl victory, but followed that performance up with a mediocre 2022 that saw MSU go 5-7, struggling to win just two conference games.
Thorne will have his work cut out for him in the SEC West, which is always brutal. Plus, Auburn is coming off a 2022 season where the Tigers — *checks notes — went 5-7, struggling to win just two conference games.
