Michigan State Football: Payton Thorne will break more records in 2022

After breaking the Michigan State football single-season passing touchdowns record in 2021, Payton Thorne has more in the tank for 2022.

When Payton Thorne took the field as Michigan State football’s QB1 last fall, no one really knew what to expect. Would he be an Andrew Maxwell-like starter or would he have a season like Brian Lewerke did in 2017 as a first-year starter?

Early on, it was evident that he was more like a healthy Lewerke than anything else.

And then he just continued to crush it.

Sure, Thorne had the occasional bad game (Nebraska and Ohio State come to mind) but he still finished the season with over 3,200 yards and 27 touchdowns, breaking the single-season record for the latter. His 3,240 passing yards were also good for the third-best single-season in Michigan State history. And he did all of this without having a single top-10 single-game passing yardage showing.

One word described his 2021 season: consistency.

Thorne was just 156 yards shy of breaking the single-season passing yardage mark which would have made his 2021 campaign the best any quarterback had, on paper, in Michigan State history.

And he’s not done yet.

Thorne is going to crack into the top 10 in MSU career passing yards this season (assuming he stays healthy) and he’s already No. 10 in touchdown passes. If he has a similar season to the one he had in 2021, he’s going to be No. 4 in touchdown passes and No. 5 in passing yards.

I expect him to break the single-season mark for passing yards and crack into the top five all-time in that category as well as touchdowns.

Payton is going to break his own records in 2022 and climb up the all-time lists even more. Two more years of Thorne may actually make him the school’s all-time leading passer.

Here’s to hoping.