In any obviously failing relationship, the cracks become fractures unless you heal them somehow.

In a nutshell, you have the far from harmonious partnership of the quarterback Payton Thorne and head coach Hugh Freeze on the 2024 Auburn Tigers.

Thorne found himself yelled at, heavily criticized, undermined and briefly benched during his final year of eligibility, but somehow he still starts under center in the Iron Bowl later in the day.

Clearly, perseverance matters in the brutal landscape of college football. Even Freeze thawed a little when he talked about his quarterback.

“Most of our conversations now — there’s obviously going to be some ball-talking in meetings and all that — but most of it has been about the mental toughness that he and I kind of endured together to get through a lot of these things.” Freeze said during a press briefing this week.

“He could have gone in many different directions, and it’s down to him, his composition, his determination and his mental toughness, to not let others define him, and to continue to go to work, to continue to work. improve, to improve himself and to help others around him improve. And so most of our discussions were about that.

Losing to Cal at home was kind of where everything came to a head with Thorne and his head coach. Thorne’s hectic, turnover-riddled performance Everyone wondered why Freeze didn’t aggressively pursue another quarterback in the transfer portal.

However, in the last two games, the former Michigan State standout has totaled nearly 500 yards and seven touchdowns against just one pick, and of course, there was the courageous overtime win against Texas A&M.

“I mean, he’s played really well in a lot of games since Cal, and he just hasn’t gotten results for one reason or another,” Freeze insisted. “But his play has been pretty consistent.”

As a freshman receiver Cam Coleman continued its flourishing development, we found that Thorne’s performance also improved, and of course KeAndre Lambert-Smith has been playing consistently at the All-SEC level since arriving from Penn State.

Despite everything Thorne has been through, he may be laying a tangible foundation for future success, and he’s certainly determined to move up.

“Our last regular season game here, let’s give ourselves a chance to make a bowl,” Thorne said this week. “That would be a hell of a way to end the year. And so it would mean a lot to me, something that you can look back on, you know, years later and say you won that rivalry game.”

Winning the Iron Bowl would certainly spell a much different ending for Thorne and Freeze, but we would be wrong to simply forgive and forget how the pair’s strange routine simply failed.