In the NIL-driven landscape of college football, there’s always a risk that you’ll end up with a lemon instead of a Lamborghini.
For Auburn, that’s been the reality over the last several seasons highly compensated players have come and gone without earning their paychecks. Unfortunately for the Tigers, the issue has largely plagued the offense, particularly at the most critical position: quarterback.
Below are three of the most costly NIL missteps Auburn has made in recent years.
Payton Thorne
It’s not that Thorne lacked credentials when he arrived he did, after all, throw for 3,232 yards and 27 touchdowns at Michigan State in 2021. The problem was that after watching the offense struggle during his first year on the Plains, Hugh Freeze doubled down, bringing Thorne back for another season.
That decision backfired spectacularly. Thorne and Freeze never seemed to get on the same page, and tensions boiled over during a game at Georgia, when the quarterback ran a play on fourth down that the head coach didn’t approve of, leading to a public he-said/he-said exchange. The relationship appeared fractured. Ask anyone 20 years from now who Auburn’s quarterback was during Freeze’s first two seasons, and few will likely remember Thorne’s name.
Jackson Arnold
Things started promisingly when Arnold led Auburn to a season-opening win at Baylor to kick off the 2025 campaign, but it was all downhill from there. Not exactly a sharp downfield passer, Arnold and the Tigers’ offense struggled badly for most of the season, until he was finally benched following a disastrous first half against Arkansas.
Arnold’s lack of production and the offense’s overall struggles—sealed Freeze’s fate. He was fired after a humiliating 10-3 loss to a woeful Kentucky team.
Xavier Chaplin
Auburn fans have long been waiting for a reliable left tackle. They certainly didn’t find one in Chaplin, a transfer from Virginia Tech. The real issue appeared to be a lack of due diligence on the lineman: it was finally revealed in October that he had a diagnosed hearing condition.
Those repeated false starts whether on the road or in the friendly confines of Jordan-Hare Stadium suddenly made perfect sense.
Leave a Reply