Payton Thorne and Caleb Burton make Auburn football better in 2023

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Welcome on to Lockdown Auburn, your daily Auburn Tigers Podcast. I'm your host Zach Blackerby and thank you so much for making Lockdown Auburn. You're first listen, every single day. Joining me as he does every single Monday, the every day is out there. Know this. I'm your host, Bob Cosby writer at Auburn daily.com and host of Lockdown MLB prospects. What a weekend for Hugh Freeze and the Auburn Tigers that go out and get a new quarterback. Peyton Thorne becomes official signs, all of that good stuff. And then they also add former Ohio state wide receiver. Now Auburn Tiger Caleb Burton and we'll discuss what that looks like as far as a wider receiver pecking order going forward. But Lindsey, I guess the big question is, okay, Peyton Thorne, it's a quarterback. It's great. It's exciting. How much better does it make you in 2023? And Lindsey, I think it makes Auburn significantly better assuming he's the starter going into the season. Yeah. I mean, look at this offense last year and like arguably the two, the two things that held back this offense, the most were the offensive line and just the inability to reliably pass protect at all. And then the quarterback play and specifically being able to complete not only shots down the field, but the routine plays baseball coach, butch Thompson has a thing, dominate the routine play. You need to make the easy completions and then give your guy a shot to make the tough ones. And Auburn does literally unprecedented work in the, in the transfer portal to handle the offensive line issue. I mean, they go out and they get multiple day one starters out of the line, out of the portal. I think that just we have not seen in this modern era of college football, we didn't know it was possible. It is. Exactly. Yeah. But then they go out and they get a quarterback that is experienced that can do all of the routine plays can do some of the hard plays. Right. And just raises the ceiling and the floor of this offense. And that's the thing to be really excited about. So when you talk to folks close to Michigan state or folks that cover the big 10 closely, the reviews on Peyton Thorne are unanimously good. I haven't found anybody that has told me and watch out. Everybody talks about how he's really better than what his stats were when he was there. And so I made a point. I wanted to watch as much stuff from last season as I could before I went back to watch his 2021 stuff. And so over the weekend, watch several games got most of the season in when you're looking at the 2022 season. And the bottom line here is Lindsey is the offense. It was bad. Like Michigan state scheme stunk. They are low K running back. They've got some good wide receivers. And I think Peyton Thorne was pretty dang good. The offensive line was average at best. He will have a better offensive line at Auburn going into the situation, which is exciting. But I think something that stood out to me and all of this was, okay, he's very good at understanding and feeling the pocket around him, which is cool because you're still going to have to do that in the SEC. I don't care how good your offensive line is, you're still going to have to do that. And he was very good at knowing when he needed to release the ball quickly versus when he could put more ump into it. That's great. Good experience stuff that has some traits of a quarterback that has been playing college football for several seasons. You love that. You absolutely love that. The other thing is like how good Keon Coleman is. And I don't think Auburn's going to add Keon Coleman, but I say this. Keon Coleman, his ability was winning 50-50 balls. And a key element of winning 50-50 balls is your quarterback needs to have elite placement consistently when doing all of that. And just the scheme, the Michigan State ran last year, Lindsey. There's exceptions. So this isn't a fully blanket statement that I'm throwing out here. But for the most part, they did not consistently get separation when they were playing against good defensive back play. And so I don't know if Auburn's receivers are going to consistently create separation this season. And so you've got a dude that is going to be able to give them a chance. I think his accuracy is very, very underrated, Lindsey. Yeah, it's the most frustrating thing when you are a fan from home watching a football game is when it feels like a wide receiver is just wide open. It's a coverage bust. They schemed him open and they got him there. And that's an element that Auburn has not had in the offense for. I'm going to share to please say a decade. I mean, short of individual plays, I'm thinking about Sammy Coates in the iron bowl. Outside of like individual plays, you haven't really had those coverage busts where a guy was wide open. You talk about scheming somebody open? Yes. Like just 2013 and 2014. Yeah. Yeah. Some moments in 17, but consistently I'm with you, 13 and 14. Sure. Yeah. And so knowing that one, this is an offense coordinated by Phillip Montgomery, one L. Very important. Exactly one L and Phillip Montgomery. Not to just one, but coordinated by him. Hugh Freeze coming in over the top to give adjustments, things that he's noticed. I feel confident that they're going to be able to, to scheme guys open the first time and probably a decade will have a coach that has experienced and high level experience with passing offenses and getting guys open. It's funny how low the standards are for us. I'm like, just give me a guy open once a game, open without having to beat a divis of back individually. But you combine that with the ability of a patent or into plays a ball where it needs to be. It gives you a bigger margin for error, right? You can take the small windows and make them a little bit bigger with really good ball placement. So while you're trying to get in your guys, trying to get in your receivers, the guys who are tailored to your scheme, you can bring in a guy with such good ball placement like Peyton Thorne can help with that adjustment and that transition has me very excited for what this passing offense could do in 2023. And I think another thing that I wanted to pick at is a lot of people pointing out that he was quote unquote worse this past season than he was his first year as a full time starter being worse in 22 than he was in 21 and statistically that's true when you look at passing yardage. But I kind of think the thing that we need more in this Auburn offense is like completion percentage and accuracy. And he was 60% in 2021. He was 62% last year, but the offense just stunk Lindsey. And there were several moments where he'd put the ball into a great place for a receiver or when he was running across the field and just consistent drops. Consistent drops are just the inability to play on a football. Now the question is, you know, folks that are maybe skeptical about this Auburn offense is like, is he suddenly in a better situation when it comes to passing guys? I don't know. I don't know as far as the receiving stuff goes. But just from an eye test standpoint, like he didn't just become a worse, worse quarterback from 2021 to 2022. And I think this is the same group that talks about how like Nick Marshall didn't improve from 2013 to 2014 just because we won less games in 14 as we did in 13. But there's so much more that goes into it than this. But to say like Peyton Thorne isn't as valuable or isn't as symbolic of, you know, upside because he took a step back as far as passing yards ago last year. I'm just, I'm not going to buy that. It is maybe a long summer because if that just bothers you, I'm going to say it over and over and over again. But I just watched his 2022 stuff and I think this is a pretty good quarterback far better than anything we've had since Jared's did him. Nope, not true. 2019 Bow Nix was pretty solid. So the two points I'll make to people who are making that and I'm not going to belabor this for too long because I know we're running on the first segment here is number one, 2021 he had Kenneth Walker. He lost beside him. One of the best running backs in college football, 22 he didn't necessarily have that. Well, what is the one position group on this team that we all said, Hey, it's fantastic. You've got studs. You don't have to worry about improving this room because they're going to handle an SEC tight performance. Running back. Yes. The other point I'll make is statistically he was down in 22 from 21. Okay. So football focus scores, his passing offense went from a 74 grade in 2021 to a 70.7 grade in 2022, which is, I mean, just mere percentage points different despite the fact that he had a worse surrounding cast, a worse scenario as far as having to go to Michigan, having to go, you know, on the road for a lot of two Penn State, a lot of these games, he got in a worse situation with worse personnel. And his grade was within the margin of error of being the exact same to me. His, uh, his gaming is Michigan is worth watching too. They get waxed, but it's not his fault. Yeah. I mean, he, he did, he does everything you need a quarterback to do to be successful and give your team a chance to win. And that's what Auburn's looking for. You're not looking for a guy that will single handedly put the offense on his back and carry them to a national championship. You're looking for a guy who can raise the floor, raise the ceiling and give you more versatility as far as running and reliably completing passes, like we're quibbling over 60 versus 62% when the previous guy was under 50. Like it's, I, I, I misspoke on something. I don't think he's better than Boneyx. I think a situation though at Auburn is better than what Boneyx had. So I want before people light me up on that. I think Boneyx had more upside and I think that's clear exactly what it did at Oregon. All right. Let's talk about some of these past catchers that he may be throwing to one. Kayla Burton and two are more wide receivers coming. Lindsey, we discussed that it's in just a moment right here on locked on Auburn. You can make a fast break to fandoll during the NBA playoffs because right now new customers can get a no sweat first bet up to $1,000. You can bet on everything at fandoll except what Alabama baseball. Oh, can't bet on Alabama baseball. But you get that on the NBA. You can bet on some future stuff that's starting to pop up for the NFL. MLB is great right now. Yeah. Be sure to bet on that. Ronald Acuna is still the favorite to win the MVP. You were not ready for that. But Fandoll is ready for you. There's no better place to bet on all of your action in America's number one sportsbook. It's at fandoll.com slash locked on. You're going to know sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's fandoll.com slash locked on. Met an podcast often on the Defrias puts some clacks. Then to swing stay, Mila Akushtopp Zoga triflexa ex swai. Met him starting digital efficiency motor is the best Akushtopp Zoga. That's like the Arty Stiftung Varen test. The Galop Tepich Flesen Ora Paket, the extra-barreta electroburster past the automata sch Yiedenboden Belachan. And the Kiaetzt Zoga d'Esteften Varen test Metrais Seitaggez Ora Karanti, on Todia Aleenforce of Mila DE slash triflex. Auburn adds a commitment from former Ohio State wide receiver Caleb Burton. Lindsey, I talked highly about this kid when he visited Auburn. And I was pretty pessimistic with how it ended. I mean, he just like talked to reporters and he was like, yeah, it's better than I thought it would be, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. And then Peyton Thorne commits. And all of a sudden, I think there's a lot more interest to come play here if you're a wide receiver. And so, um, Caleb Burton, a former four star. He's undersized. He's like five. What do I have here? 511 170. Wait, I won 69, which is nice. 170 is one pound more for sure. So I think, um, I don't know, I just think when you look at what his ability is, I'm guessing he'll play the why, which means he may take snaps away from Givarius Johnson or coy Moore assuming everybody's kind of where they were in the spring, also assuming they are going to play him at the why they may move him outside. I don't, that'd be a smaller outside of receiving than what Hugh Freeze is normally used to, but still, um, it gives you more options on, at a position group that it doesn't sound like folks were too fired up about. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's something where outside of Cam Brown, it feels like nobody in this room really has an argument to say, no, this should be my job. I should be the starter and there shouldn't be a question about that. Uh, it's something where doesn't have any stats from Ohio State last I checked, like nothing. Yeah. I mean, he read charted last year. Yeah. We all, I remember during the coaching search, the conversations about like Brian Hartline, like, Hey, say Brian Hartline, be an offensive coordinator candidate. Should he be, I mean, he's well respected former Ohio State wide receiver, well respected as a coach of wider severs, a recruiter. And so the fact that he wanted Kayla Burton to come to Ohio State and he brought him there. And you know, doesn't mean like, sorry, that does mean that I have more confidence that Kayla Burton is better than what he has shown so far in college. Former four star out of college, I was right out of high school. Uh, and in the city of Texas, where you have tons of competition, tons of high level competition. Sure. I'm excited about Kayla Burton in this offense. And yes, he's not prototypical size, but again, you're in that transitional year where you're trying to get your guys in. In an ideal world, he'd be in the slot, but he has the skill set where he can play outside until we get those guys who would be prototypical, Hugh Freeze outside wide receivers. And look, if you could run routes in today's version of college football, I mean, you can, you can line up anywhere. I mean, we've seen, I mean, he's not the exact same build as, you know, the slim reaper that won the Heisman, you know, a few years ago at Alabama, but like it's shown that you don't have to be this big imposing guy to create space for yourself. You talk about creating separation, you know, perhaps, perhaps Burton can certainly do that. And you talk about Brian Hartland wanting them, but I mean, just Ohio State wanting you a wide receiver. I mean, they make a pretty good case to be wide receiver. You right now over the last five years or so, I mean, it seems like every year they've got a, at least a top two rounds receiver drafted, um, dating back to Michael Thomas. I mean, they, they just consistently, consistently do that. And the guys that leave there, guys like a James and Williams, I mean, guys that leave there because of playing time reasons, I'm not saying Caleb Burton is James and Williams. I'm saying that, uh, they have a ton of wide receiver talent and it makes sense that they would have quality that would fall through the cracks because of red shirts and injuries and classes and just the way things shake out that can go out and light it up somewhere else. So the fact that we have multiple years of eligibility of both a transfer quarterback and a transfer wide receiver should make you very excited if you're an Auburn fan because I'm going to put these guys, we're going to play matchmaker. We're going to put them together next week. They're going to be side by side all the time building that chemistry, uh, right in routes together, go into movies, eat dinner, everything you get double dates, whatever it is. Wow. So if they're going to be the fall, they know exactly what each other is thinking on the field and they can make the magic happen. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think he's got a chance. Look, I think you freeze. If it's a tie, I think he's going to go to the guys that he brought in. I mean, it's just kind of human nature to trust his dude. So we'll see it. And I think the timing of this, I don't think it's coincidence. It certainly could be, but I just don't think it is. Do you think this is an actual question? Do you think, and let me know in the comments who, cause I'm genuinely curious, do you think Burton commits if Peyton Thorne hadn't committed on Friday? I am not a division one wide receiver, but if I was and Peyton Thorne was not committed to Auburn, I probably would be waiting to commit until I found out who was going to be the quarterback. Honestly, just based off of what you saw on the field last year, whether it's the box score, whether it's film, whatever you saw, you're like, there's flashes of greatness. The pass in the iron bowl. We keep talking about that individual play, but the consistency wasn't there for me to know I'm going to be able to put up the stats I need to put up to get to the NFL where I can play on Sundays. Is it true that you did not receive her, but it is true that you ever played collegiate football? Lindsay. Actually, is it true that you won a national championship? It is. Okay. All right, we'll leave that there. Yeah, leave that there. All right, there are. There are maybe let's go. There are more receivers probably on the way. Lindsay, let's discuss that in just a moment right here on lock on Auburn. Today's show brought to you by the lock on Auburn discord. Be sure to click it. It is free. All you have to do is click the link in the episode description down below. It's a great way to have access to me, the Lindsey, the Charlie five, Darrell Fergs in there to him. He may answer you. I don't know. We've seen him answer people before, so we'll see. We will see. All right, Auburn hosted North Texas wide receiver, Jayeir shorter. And it sounds like Auburn absolutely killed the visit. He told Auburn live Auburn's on three site quote, I'm supposed to go to Mississippi state in Colorado, but after seeing this place had a good talk with coach freeze today. I'm going to see how it goes. My decision will probably be made very quickly. And so once again, we're seeing him absolutely just focus on talent acquisition and filling out this roster, Lindsay. And just so everybody knows, Jayeir shorter, though his last name is shorter, he is not short. He is 6, 2, 2, 18 according to the North Texas roster online. He is that prototypical outside receiver that Hugh Freeze looks for. And I want to make sure that like people are aware, I'm going to tell you in 2022, he played in 13 games. Okay. 23 receptions. Double digit touchdowns. I was about to say, if you had to guess how many touchdowns, it would be double digit. He averaged 27.3 yards per reception. 23 catches for 628 yards and 11 touchdowns. He is actually the person that we thought all of these short, fast slot guys shorter. As far as being deep threats, he is shorter, but bigger and better than all of those guys were. And so, I mean, 27 yards a catch. Those are like video game numbers. I can't make that happen. Hard to do. On NCAA 14. Yeah. It's fantastic. No, that's great. It's great. That's certainly something that you want. And so, I think level of competition is a concern, right? And so, you know, I think probably a big part of his recruiting pitch, whether it's Hugh Freeze, you know, whether it's Mississippi State, whether it's Colorado talking to him, which sounds like he's going to visit those places. But it's like, man, you know, if we think you're good enough to do this, and maybe you put something on tape to explain why. But I mean, the natural athleticism certainly seems to be there with Jair shorter. And it's folks like this. This is why the portal, this is the best part of the portal, in my opinion. You get a guy like shorter that killed it at North Texas. And then he's able to kind of take that step up. We saw that last week when Auburn was able to go get probably the most talented player on Appstance roster. I mean, this is just, this is the good part of the portal that I think a lot of these kids are going to be able to benefit from. So that's very, very exciting. So we'll see, you know, I'm curious to see how quick those two visits are that he mentioned, Lindsey, but him saying that, you know, him telling Auburn live.com that'll, the decision will probably make quickly. That kind of makes me feel pretty confident about that. So we will, we'll see. All right. Let's wrap up today's show with a huge dub, an absolute huge dub by the Auburn baseball team. Winning two out of three, I guess the number one team in all of college baseball after winning two out of three on the road against the number two team in college baseball. Last week goes South Carolina. This week it was LSU LSU's first series loss of the season. Wow. It's tough. It's something where Auburn had a unique strategy. Nobody's tried against LSU this year. And the strategy was we're just not going to lose. So LSU has what are considered to be the number one and number two picks in this year's MLB draft. You can trust me. I'd literally host a show called locked on MLB prospects. I do the number one prospects podcast in the world. Thank you. And so Paul Skins for LSU has the consensus best start I have ever seen from a college pitcher. It was impressive. Absolutely dominant on Friday night. It was stupid seven in the third innings, 15 strikeouts, one walk, 110 pitches. He's pumping 99 mile an hour sinkers in the seventh inning. It's stupid and it looks so easy. Like it didn't even look like he was trying that hard. He's not even really exerting himself and he's pumping 99 on pitch 109. Crazy. But what Auburn does is Auburn says, Hey, we're going to move our number one guy to Saturday. And we're going to move our number two guy to Sunday. They get an extra day arrest. We don't have to put them up against Paul Skins. And Auburn goes out and holds the number one offense in the country to 18 hits. Yes, but eight runs in those two games wins them both. And it's just, it's a scenario where all year we've talked about the pitching wasn't quite there, right? The pitching has been struggling. They can't seem to hold a lead. They can't seem to get the swing and miss. Butch Thompson has fixed that. Yes. Tommy Vale goes out on Saturday. Tommy Vale's fastball is capping out at 92 miles an hour. There are changeups that fast. Tommy Vale strikes out eight batters, gives up one earned run in his outing. You go to Sunday and you've got, you've got Christian Herberholtz and he gives up one earned run in five innings. Auburn run rules the number one team in the country. The offense showed up. The pitching staff has finally figured out these are the roles we should be in. And this is now a team that two weeks ago we were discussing, this is what you had to do to even make the postseason. They're doing it. And now they're 11 and 13 and they've, they're two series left are against two of the three worst teams left in the SEC in Missouri and Ole Miss. If Auburn is not going to happen, clarify it front. If Auburn were to win out and win their last six conference games, a 17 win Auburn team is hosting a regional. Now I don't expect them to do that. But two weeks ago, we were discussing you had to sweep Mississippi State, you had to sweep Ole Miss, you had to sweep Missouri and try to steal one against number two South Carolina and number one LSU. Instead, you won both of the series against the number one and number two team of the country. And you are definitely set to probably go from a number three seed to a number two seed in the postseason. Yeah. I mean, how much of a benefit of the doubt as far as seating goes, well, like butch tops and get in this program get or is it all, is it all metrics and stuff, none of it's kind of eye test or anything like that. So what helps is the RPI is so good, right? You are because you're playing in the, you're dealing with all of these really good teams who have really good schedules. When it comes to a tiebreaker, the SEC team is going to win that over an SEC team over, sorry, over an ACC team, over a PAC 12 team, over a big 10 team, things like that. Auburn is sitting at number 28 in RPI and you still have six conference games to go. I feel really good that Auburn's got the benefit of the doubt at this point. They've never had that under Butch Thompson. They've never gotten credit for how good they've been. They finally have it. What happens if a gonzo comes back and he's like, what he's been, what happens then? Is another trip to Omaha possible? I think it is because Auburn's biggest issue all season had been figuring out that one through three, right? Who was going to be your three starters who could reliably go four or five innings every single outing? And we saw the Sunday blowups were because one of your starters on Friday or Saturday would get knocked out in the second and you'd eat into that bullpendep. If gonzo comes back, a guy who pitched a complete game against Vanderbilt last year in a win, a guy that had five straight quality starts last season, if gonzo could come back, then gonzo Tommy Vale, Christian Herberholtz, that one through three is on par with just about any SEC teams one through three, maybe with the exception of Florida. Like it's one of the better rotations in the SEC and that means you can pick and choose in the bullpen. When do I go to a John Armstrong? When do I go to a Will Cannon? When do I go to a Tanner Bowman? I've got guys in every single game now because I'm not calling on anybody until sixth. And if that happens, if gonzo comes back and is the Joseph Gonzalez that we know, Auburn's going to Omaha. Book it. Let's go. Let's go. It's the Crosby. How can people check out everything you've got going on, buddy? I'm on Twitter at Crosby Baseball. The the baseball show locked into the prospects available. We get to podcasts on YouTube. You can find the Auburn baseball writing, Auburn daily calm, the Atlanta Braves writing Braves today.com. You can find on my written work at Auburn daily.com tomorrow at Charlie Tuesday. And then also stay tuned this week. We'll have cross over episodes with our locked on Spartan toast, as well as our locked on Buckeyes host to learn more about these new Auburn Tigers. Until then, we'll see you tomorrow. This has been locked on Auburn. A prime members, you can listen to this locked on podcast ad free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. Hey.