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Published Nov 15, 2020
Thorne makes strong case for starting job
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Jim Comparoni  •  Spartans Illustrated
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East Lansing, Mich. - Payton Thorne has played football all his life, but in the past 23 months, he had to learn to sit and watch.

He redshirted last year, and then spent the first three-and-a-half games of this season as Rocky Lombardi’s back-up.

For a back-up quarterback, there are no chances to sub into the game for a rep here or a rep there. There are no chances to run and tackle someone on special teams, or throw a block.

Thorne finally took the field for the first time last week in the late stages of a blowout loss at Iowa. He handed it off three times and then rolled out and missed tight end Tyler Hunt on a fourth-down out route.

He had to live with the possibility that he might not get another chance all year. But he also had to prepare as if he was going to be the starter.

Both of those realities came together during Saturday’s 24-0 loss to Indiana. He entered the game midway through the second quarter and moved the offense better than Lombardi.

Thorne finished with 110 yards passing on 10-of-20 accuracy. Receivers dropped two of his passes.

Head coach Mel Tucker’s philosophy is that whoever is on the field, for any reason, that player is considered the starter - for that moment at least.

After coaches watch film on Sunday, they might head into preparation week for next Saturday’s game at Maryland with the mindset that Thorne is still the starter.

We in the public aren’t likely to find out who the starter is going to be until gametime on Saturday. But the seemingly calm Thorne says his preparation won’t change a bit - although his frame of reference is more vast now.

“This week, it was nice to get in there and get some real action and move the ball around a little bit,” he said.

He gained 38 yards on a zone read keeper on his first play.

“It was nice to get in there and kind of get hit in that first play,” Thorne said. “You hear a lot of people talk about the first time you get hit it kind of turns real. I haven’t been tackled in awhile so getting tackled like that kind of woke me up and got me ready to go.”

The 23-month wait was a long one for Spartans too. Thorne was an underrated recruit coming out of Naperville (Ill.) Central High School. He de-committed from Western Michigan after the Spartans offered a scholarship.

He impressed last year’s coaching staff while with the scout team, and climbed the depth chart ladder last fall. When Brian Lewerke was briefly injured during the Illinois game last year, Thorne - and not Lombardi or Theo Day - was told to get ready, that he might be going in.

But Lewerke finished that game, and the rest of the season, and Thorne continued to wait.

Then Lombardi - who threw for more than 300 yards in each of the first two games - experienced a rough outing at Iowa last week, and then an equally shaky beginning to this game.

Lombardi failed to execute a zone read option on third-and-two, ending MSU’s first drive at the Indiana 38-yard line. It appeared that Lombardi tried to leave the ball in the gut of tailback Jordon Simmons. But Simmons, a freshman, ran forward without the ball, thinking Lombardi was going to keep it.

Did Lombardi plant the ball firmly enough in Simmons’ gut? We don’t know. But Lombardi’s first possession ended, and he would never cross the 50 again.

Lombardi threw an interception on the first snap of MSU’s next series. On that play, he threw deep for Jayden Reed into man-to-man, single coverage. But Lombardi left the ball too high, and not close enough to the boundary, and short.

The other defensive back on that side of the field, cornerback Tiawan Mullen, was in man-to-man coverage on Ricky White, but had a good enough handle on White that Mullen was able to peek back into the backfield, see the throw released, and peel back to the ball for the interception. It wasn’t necessarily a bad read, but an imperfect throw - and an extraordinary read and reaction by Mullen.

Michigan State was trailing 14-0 by the time Lombardi piloted a three-and-out drive. He was sacked on third-and-eight as his offensive line failed to pick up a stunt as part of a zone pressure.

Lombardi’s next drive ended in one play when he made a poor decision to throw into the double-coverage teeth of a cover-two zone. He was pulled and didn’t return to the game.

THEN CAME THORNE’S TURN

If there had been a capacity crowd at Spartan Stadium on Saturday, they would have cheered when Thorne trotted out to the field - like they always do for the back-up, like they did for Lombardi in 2018.

They would have cheered wildly during his first snap, when he scampered 38 yards on that zone read option, perfectly executing the same type of play that Lombardi failed to engineer on third-and-two earlier in the game.

“We got good blocking on the perimeter and good blocking inside and I just tucked it and ran,” Thorne said. “Nice blocking by the receivers to give me an opportunity to get down the field.”

It was clear immediately that Thorne had life in his legs, and occasional efficiency with his arms. He could scramble out of the pocket while keeping his eyes downfield and put an added layer of pressure on defenses that way.

Tucker acknowledged that the coaching staff has a decision to make. He didn’t label Lombardi as the etched-in-stone starter. He didn’t portray Thorne as the obvious choice to take over the job.

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