Auburn coach Hugh Freeze demands more from QB Payton Thorne before Cal

That's the nature of the competitive spirit, and an avalanche of 73 points only leads to the Auburn Tigers looking for more and more ways to improve their performance.

Of course, today's visit from the Cal Bears will present the Tigers with a much tougher opponent, especially for the Payton Thorne-led offense. After all, cutting through Alabama A&M's defense like a knife through hot butter isn't going to be an everyday occurrence.

Thorne will likely have significantly less time to hit as he pleases this week – teams like Cal will want to put pressure on him and force him to make mistakes.

Overall, Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze believes the added emphasis on defense will be beneficial for the challenges ahead, especially because Thorne needs to develop a better feel for working behind his offensive line.

“I expect him to do certain things that I was upset about the other night right 95 percent of the time,” Freeze admitted last week. “I got really upset one time and frustrated a couple of others. He still made good throws and scored a touchdown or whatever, but he didn't protect himself like he should. I don't want him to take unnecessary hits, and I've made it clear that I believe in him. With that comes the expectation that if I know we've discussed something thoroughly, there's an expectation that he's going to do it right. He handles that well.”

This season, there's also the added benefit of in-helmet communication, helping Thorne get things done exactly the way he wants.

If you had only taken the time to listen to Coach Freeze, you might have thought that he didn't have much to contribute to the process last Saturday night. His clear desire is for the players to be fully prepared well ahead of schedule.

On the other hand, Thorne had a more positive overall opinion of how everything went under the lights. The communication was on point, he found

“It was good, I heard coach very clearly,” Thorne emphasized during the week. “The repetitions during training camp helped us get comfortable with it and everything went well on Saturday. If it goes over 15 seconds and coach sees something, he can just tell me instead of signaling me on the sideline. I think that happened once in the game last week, so it gives me the opportunity to handle things better at the line of scrimmage and get comfortable in this offense.”

You'd think Freeze and Thorne would engage in a good-cop-bad-cop cosplay to get more out of the young Tigers team.

The truth is that the two men may see things a little differently, especially when it comes to new technology, but any quarterback is always grateful for a head coach who makes the right decisions and protects the pass.

“Coach has given me the opportunity to help the guys up front to make sure I'm protecting myself and we're all on the same page,” Thorne said. “Being able to redirect certain things and make sure we're making the best play possible has helped us as a unit.”

Three-quarters of the extremely impressive Freeze Four scored touchdowns last week, so perhaps the truth was in the trying.

However, all young groups always need a carrot and a stick if they are to fully exploit their enormous potential, not to mention a general who is willing to conscientiously implement the game plan given to him.

So there's a lot to see and learn later today when Auburn takes on Cal.