Auburn football has many questions to answer following its week two defeat to Cal on Saturday, needing to bounce back before conference play starts in s matter of weeks.
Auburn QB Payton Thorne took the podium following the loss after going 14-for-27 with 165 yards and one touchdown with four interceptions added on.
Here is what he had to say after the game regarding his own performance and the team’s performance.
On the reasoning behind the Tigers’ turnovers:
“There’s different situations that happen throughout the game. Obviously, no matter how a turnover happens or occurs, you don’t want those. So, we’ve got to do a better job of protecting the ball, and that starts with me. I touch the ball every single play. So, got to do that, and like you said, back to the drawing board a little bit. We’re not going to abandon our offense, but it’s got to be sharper.”
On losing the field position battle:
“I thought our defense really played well today. They had a short field on an interception, I think that was first half. Did they score on that one? I think they did. That’s not on them. And then, we just didn’t do a good enough job of getting first downs when we’re backed up to flip the field. Obviously, field position is an important thing in this game and at this level. Like I said, I thought our defense played really well today, and we weren’t able to do enough to help them out.”
On his fourth quarter interceptions:
“I didn’t think it was necessarily a miscommunication on the first of those two. I saw a man in coverage over there with Cam (Coleman). We talked all camp that one-on-one, we like our chances, and we feel like we’re open. And I found out afterwards, I think, that he was a little shaken up on that, so I don’t think he was 100%. That stinks. Obviously, I didn’t know that. That’s not on him. Like I said, obviously, if he’s not 100%, that’s going to make it tough. But I don’t know what the verdict is on that. I think he’s OK.
But yeah, that was the first one. And then the second one, we had 30 seconds left. We’re trying to get a chunk play. We ran something, we tagged something over there, and we haven’t gotten a ton of reps at that, I guess. Me and KeAndre (Lambert-Smith) hadn’t talked on the sideline about that play, so he was expecting that post to be way down the field, and with one-high zone, that’s going to be just a jump ball, and that’s tough. So I was trying to fit it in there, like a bang post-type deal. And like you said, we were just on different pages there.”
On the lack of rhythm from the offense:
“Their defense did a good job mixing some things up. It felt like when we did get a rhythm going, bang, a negative play. You don’t obviously want that. We try to limit negative plays as much as we can. We had a few too many tonight. I have to go back and look at the film to really see momentum-type stuff like that. Obviously we weren’t able to hold onto that momentum tonight.”
On if the Cal defense changed anything following Auburn’s opening drive score:
“Not necessarily. Obviously I missed a couple throws today that I feel like I make on the regular. We were on different pages on one of them, kind of. Then the other one, I just kind of missed him. I don’t think the defense did too much different. They gave us a couple blitzes that we had only seen once on film. That’s a credit to them. I don’t think they did too much terribly different.”
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