Kent Austin Q&A: Payton Thorne’s control of the offense, backup QB battle and much more

AUBURN — Auburn quarterbacks coach Kent Austin spoke with the media on Thursday as preseason camp rolled on. Austin is a fantastic interview with a wealth of knowledge to provide. Here’s nearly everything Austin said about Payton Thorne‘s growth, where the backup quarterbacks stand, a strong wide receiver room and so much more.

What has the first week of camp been like?

“First of all, I think we have a, we have a great room of guys. They probably are the best group of quarterbacks as a whole that I’ve coached as far as individuals, their level of preparation, their desire to be good and to study and to make sure that when they enter the field they’re well prepared to make great decisions because ultimately that’s the number one thing you have to have as a quarterback, is be a great decision maker. And they’ve taken that to heart and absorbed a lot of information so far and I think they’re processing it really well.”

Can you talk about the difference in one year ago? Not being on the field and now being on the field, you have to feel more comfortable?

“Well, I don’t know if I’m the guy, but I certainly have a lot of help. Coach Freeze and Jesse (Stone), it feels a lot better, for sure. And it’s something I’ve done, you know, my whole career coaching quarterbacks. And obviously I feel very comfortable in that role and take very seriously our responsibility, my responsibility to get that room prepared. I have to be the most prepared guy on the football field every time I take the field, and we don’t have a lot of compromise in that area.”

How comfortable is Thorne heading into this preseason camp?

“He is, he has a complete command of defensive recognition, a complete command of pressures, complete command of protection. He sets all our protections for us. He is a very, very intelligent and smart quarterback. You can be intelligent and smart, but you have to have immediate recall football in that position. You have to be able to get a play immediately, have a picture of that play and know exactly what your roles are for execution and for the decision making and then being able to implement it very quickly with different defensive structures that you’re facing.

“And he has a tremendous recall of information. You don’t have to show him a lot of looks. He’s not a high rep quarterback. You can show him a look one time and he’ll recall it through four days later. So that’s going to serve him really well this year. He’s doing really, really well.”

How much did Thorne have control of last year? How much more is he doing this year in terms of making adjustments on the field?

“That’s a really good question. I mean, he set our protections last year, but we’re going to put more on this plate in the overall control of the offense, checking things in the run game, getting us out of a pass concept to a better pass concept in our RPO world, being able to put our receivers in the proper RPO by changing the two receiver combo, the single receiver combo based on defensive structure. So all of that, the way we design it as far as preparing the quarterbacks is as we game plan. There’s a why behind everything, and there’s layered learning throughout the week.

“So, all the play designs and the rules will be attached to associated cut ups and then the practice will be structured in such a way that layers that learning throughout the week. So, when he goes in the game, the probability for making great decisions, you know, increases dramatically and Payton will do, he’ll flourish in that environment. That’s one of the reasons why we wanted him when we first got here. He’s played a lot of football, has a lot of experience and he had, you know, he had quite a bit on his plate to stop.”

How much does Thorne elevating his game help the other quarterbacks?

“It does. Like when the defensive front or in secondary shows a particular pressure and they’re disguised again, Payton picks it up immediately, gets us in the right protection, gets it blocked and those completion, that’s obviously going to generate confidence with the guys up front and trust that he’s going to give them a chance for success and the receivers a chance for success by delivering the ball on time and understanding when the defense is most out of position and where to go with the football in an ever increasing, decreasing amount of time. You have to be a great quarterback. We believe that you have to anticipate the game and not react to it. If you’re constantly reacting to the defense, that’s a win for the defense, especially at this level.”

What has the battle been like in the quarterback room?

“They’re all doing well at different levels, but I think if you track where they should be and where there is some carry over from last year, there’s a lot that’s not a carry over. There’s new terminology, new ways of attacking the defense, new requirements in the room that they didn’t have in the past. We believe all of them are tracking properly in that development and knowledge of the game and being able to be trustworthy when they go out on the field and play football.

“For us, competition is pretty stout right now because they’re all, you know, they’re all competing in a way that’s healthy for the team and healthy for the room because they’re good individuals, they’re good people, and they get what it means to be, you know, part of something that’s bigger than themselves but still to compete for the job that they want, but do it in the proper way. We’ll see when we get into some live periods and some scrimmages and we’ll get a better idea, really, of that ability to process and make great decisions and throw accurate, you know, throw accurate passes. When we’re in a real competition period.”

Is there any separation between Holden Geriner and Hank Brown?

“Right now they’re probably on the same level. I mean, if you were to hold a gun to my head and made me choose one of the two categories, you know, I’d say they’re, they’re probably at the same spot. But, but that will, that will separate, you know, it all. It always does. And it’s rarely a case where, you know, two guys go through the entire camp and there is some separation at some point. It might be the case this time, but, but ask me that in a couple weeks when we have a few more life periods under our belt.”

What about Walker White? How has he progressed?

“Another, I mean this, he’s, first of all, he’s an unbelievable person and talk about a guy that cares. He’s like the rest of the guys in the room. He is very detailed. He takes a ton of notes. He wants to know the why sometimes too much, right? Especially at his age right now, in his development. I told Walker, I said, walker, all you need is enough information to execute the play and nothing more. I’ll teach you the nuance of defense and coverage and how to defeat coverages within that concept. I’ll teach you the nuances, some of that stuff later. Just get enough to execute the play and go deliver the ball because he’s really physically talented.

“He’s big and strong. He’s got a great arm. He’s naturally accurate. He can get out of trouble if he needs to. But as you guys know, that the physical attributes in quarterbacking only carry you so far. That’s really not quarterbacking. You got to learn how to play the position and be a real quarterback and be a real student of the game and understand defense. If a defense coordinator understands it, you.”

How important is it to try and narrow things down in the quarterback race?

“Yeah, we’re going to. We’ve talked about it. It’s going to have to start here at some point, you know, probably quicker than later. You can’t get four guys ready. You really can only get two guys ready, and that’s even marginal once you get to the season. So, at some point here, we need to get a scrimmage in for sure, at least one. And we’ll make, we’ll make an evaluation after that, after that first scrimmage and see where guys are at. You guys know, I think we talked about this before.

“We grade every single play that a quarterback takes, doesn’t matter what the period is, and we grade them in decision making, which is the number one thing that we look for. And then physical execution and how they’ve been taught to execute that play. Right, physically. And so all those grades are being tabulated. And when we get a body of. We get enough statistically valid evidence where the plays have been evenly distributed, you know, throughout that group, we’ll have a much better idea of those two areas and then overall command of the offense. But we need some. We need, we need a scrimmage and a couple more live periods.”

How does it feel as the quarterback coach to see playmaking receivers?

“Yeah, well, it’s like I say, in my position and across the board, I mean, better players, better coaches, for sure. It’s. We will need a couple of young guys to step up and play and be productive for us. But right now it looks like that’s going to be the case and we’re more talented in that room than we were last year. I can say that we’ll see if it translates to real games, but we believe it will.”

Does have playmaking receivers take pressure off of you and the quarterbacks?

“Yeah, it does. You know, they’ll be, I mean, you’ve already, we’ve already seen it in practice. I mean, there’ll be throws that our quarterbacks will make an attempt, I guess I should say will attempt that they probably wouldn’t have attempted last year because of the trust that they have in their receiver to make those plays and to finish the play. We talk about a receiver having a big catch radius, and the bigger the catch radius, the more the quarterback is going to trust him and also the ability to do things in time and space. I don’t want to get too detailed here. When you’re facing a lot of zone coverage, I mean, man’s one thing. You just got to beat your man.

“But in zone, you have to have the ability to understand coverage and in time and space and to know when to shave a route, to know when to throttle, to know when to run through a particular zone if needed. How we’re isolating an individual defender, and they’re doing a much better job of that right now than we’ve ever done, you know, in that room. And that’s going to pay off. That to your question, I mean, that brings confidence to the quarterback in knowing, oh, if we’re going to, we’re going to isolate an inside defender with an over and under, but we’ve got it. But we got to shave away from the next defender pushing to him to ensure the throw. We wouldn’t make that throw last year. You know, we’re making that throw now.”

What are you looking for between now and game week from Thorne?

“As we one, what we have in right now, after three installations, does he have a full command and understanding those plays across the board where we can, there’s trust there in his execution of those plays. And that’s done through, like I said, all the grading and the evidence on film. I’m sorry, guys. I tracked a lot of flies. Probably not a good thing. Good quality to have. And then as we, as we add a little bit more. Right. And then we start to bring in some other operational things that he may control, we then have to evaluate that.

“So, we have an understanding going into the season what we really want to put on his plate and what we don’t want to put on his plate. The more that we can put on the quarterback’s plate as far as flexibility on what we’re doing on the field, where we’re nothing, letting a defense check our checks and coordinator check our checks and these types of things where the quarterback can control some of that, we can play faster and keep the defense more off balance. And so we’ve just got to make a decision and try to determine how much of that we’re going to give him.”

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