Auburn’s Hugh Freeze makes decision on starting quarterback

After an injury to his shoulder in the Maroon tigers‘ After the loss to Vanderbilt two weeks ago, there was speculation that starting quarterback Payton Thorne would be unavailable against Louisiana-Monroe.

Thorne did not train during the bye week, but performed well enough in training this week to get the green light. Jason Caldwell from 247Sports was one of the first to report that Thorne would get the nod for the ULM game.

“It feels a lot better,” Thorne said over his shoulder on Tuesday. “A lot better than last week, I received good treatment. Of course I worked every day to get that back to normal.”

Auburn is coming off a bye week that allowed Thorne to take time to recover instead of rushing to get back on the field.

“Only in the training room for treatment, being careful what I do in the weight room,” Thorne said of his recovery process. “Coach Dobbs is obviously great, so I trust him completely for what he let me do there. No throwing for me last week.”

Despite uncertainty surrounding Thorne’s performance in training earlier this week, head coach Hugh Vries was confident Thorne would be ready to go on Wednesday.

“Not as far as I would have hoped with the shoulder,” Freeze said Wednesday of Thorne’s status. “He thinks he’s doing well, but he certainly wasn’t ready to play yesterday.”

This is welcome news for the Tigers as they vie for the chance to play in a bowl game this winter.

“I’m just focused on doing what I can to help us win and play the best we can and finish this the right way,” Thorne said. “Obviously this is one game, one week at a time.”

Thorne and the Tigers kick off against Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday at 11:45 a.m. CT. SEC Network will provide the television broadcast.