QB Payton Thorne says he's received Venmo requests from bettors who have lost Auburn bets

We fear some angry Auburn bettors were looking up Payton Thorne’s Venmo account after Saturday’s loss to Cal.

The Tigers lost 21-14 at home to the Bears to drop to 1-1 on the season. In an interview on Tuesday morning with The Next Round, Thorne was asked about how he deals with criticism from fans and mentioned that people hit him up on Venmo. That led to a follow-up question where Thorne revealed that he’s gotten money requests from bettors after they’ve lost bets.

"They're definitely not sending cash," Thorne said. "When they lose money they want the money back, but when they win money on a parlay no one's ever sending any money."

Sports betting was happening across the United States and not just in Las Vegas for decades before the federal ban was lifted a few years ago. And now that it’s legal across much of the country, it’s been quickly normalized through our sports-watching culture. You can hardly go an ad break during a sporting event without an ad for a sports betting app.

But just because betting may be legal and accepted throughout much of the country doesn’t mean that players like Thorne should hear from bettors who have lost money. He’s not the first athlete to talk about angry betting-related mentions from fans after losses, and he’s undoubtedly not alone among college athletes in getting wagering-related Venmo requests.

Auburn turned the ball over three times in its loss on Saturday and coach Hugh Freeze lamented those turnovers in his coaches show Monday night. Freeze said that "we left so many plays out there" and said that he went over 15 plays with his team's quarterback room that were "very frustrating" and that he was "kind of baffled" about some of the things Auburn's players did.

He went further and even mentioned a fourth-down throw that Thorne made in the first quarter that resulted in an incompletion and turnover on downs after saying that he felt his coaching staff made just one bad play call throughout the game.

"I'm the first to stand before our team and say guys, we called five plays that schematically they did not give you a fighting chance," Freeze said. "And that's our fault and that's tough for me to say but I always do that. But honestly, there was one play in this game that I think was a bad call by our staff and the rest of them, if we just — now, we blew a protection, you can't do that, and it cost us. We have a wheel route running down the sideline, [Cal's defense] totally dropped him and we blew a protection with our tailback and missed that one. And then the others, though, Payton he just did not — 4th and 2, midfield, was not a good decision. We've got two slants that were just by themselves, they both won on 4th and 2, stick it on them, let's move the chains and he got greedy and tried to throw a deep ball. Situational awareness, things like that."