Payton Thorne takes snaps with first team offense in day one of camp

Thorne is battling incumbent starter Robby Ashford for the starting quarterback job.

The Auburn Tigers took the practice field on Thursday to open fall camp, and there were several notable items to take away.

One of which concerns the quarterback battle. Richard Silva of the Montgomery Advertiser reports that Michigan State transfer [autotag]Payton Thorne[/autotag] opened camp by working with the first-team offense during the media viewing period. Moreover, [autotag]Robby Ashford[/autotag] took snaps with the third team while redshirt freshman [autotag]Holden Geriner[/autotag] participated with the second team.

While this is possibly preliminary and is not an indication of what the depth chart will permanently look like, it is surprising to see Ashford working with the third team. Head coach [autotag]Hugh Freeze[/autotag] spoke about the quarterback battle earlier Thursday and says that it is all a part of the plan.

“I think we have a really good plan of the rotation between those three guys,” Freeze said. “They’re all going to rotate through the first five practices really evenly amongst the 1s and 2s and 3s. We’ll evaluate all of those reps and kind of recalibrate and sit down and kind of go through there after the first five.”

Fall camp will continue through Saturday, Aug. 19 with a scrimmage at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1364]

Contact/Follow us @TheAuburnWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Auburn news, notes, and opinion. You can also follow Taylor on Twitter @TaylorJones__