This year’s Auburn football season has come to an end. At least that portion of it which involves actually competing on the field.
The transfer portal has reimagined the off-season into a bidding war over players that jump from one team to another for any reason or no reason at all. It’s a brave new world of free agency that has transformed the sport in many ways and appears to be here to stay.
There are plenty of reasons why I don’t like it and think it undermines the tenets of football itself, but my feelings about it are irrelevant. If a coach doesn’t embrace it, he’ll just end up watching his players make tackles and score touchdowns for other teams.
It’s also important to remember that the portal works both ways. Teams lose good players every year and they also gain some pretty good players every year. The portal officially opened on Monday and will be open until December 28.
Auburn has already had a number of players enter the portal, but none of them played a major role in 2024. There will most certainly be quite a few more players that decide to go elsewhere, but I’m looking at the roster as it is today and assessing the Tigers needs in 2025.
The biggest need and most important decision facing Hugh Freeze concerning the transfer portal is obviously at quarterback. Payton Thorne is out of eligibility and his two backups in 2024 (Hank Brown & Holden Geriner) have both decided to transfer. That means Auburn has two scholarship quarterback on the roster with redshirt-freshman Walker White and incoming freshman Deuce Knight.
There are typically four scholarship quarterbacks on a roster which indicates the Tigers will most likely bring in multiple quarterbacks from the portal. With Auburn’s high profile in the SEC and the amount of money they’re willing to spend, getting a portal quarterback won’t be a problem. The trick will be getting the right quarterback.
White and Knight were both highly rated recruits and both possess immense potential. They are the future. Obviously, Freeze wouldn’t turn down an incredibly talented difference maker if he wanted to come to the Plains, but he’s probably looking for a guy with one or two years of eligibility at the most.
It also has to be someone familiar with or at least capable of running Freeze’s run/pass option system. Another aspect of bringing in multiple guys is playing time. The best of the best is looking to go somewhere to be the starter and not necessarily interested in a competition. The final point on the QB is that it’s a position Freeze cannot afford to miss on.
After two losing seasons, he will be under pressure to show significant improvement in year three. A great quarterback makes a coach’s job much easier. A mediocre quarterback makes a coach’s job much harder.
The next most important position I believe for Auburn is offensive tackle. Percy Lewis, Izavion Miller and Ronan Chambers, who played tackle, are all gone. Redshirt-freshman Tyler Johnson is certainly a possibility next year if he continues to progress, but the Tigers need two more really good tackles from the portal. I think the interior line will be fine, but Auburn struggled in pass protection in 2024. What good does it do to bring in a dynamic QB if he’s running for his life every time he drops back?
Finally, the Tigers need interior defensive linemen and linebackers. Philip Blidi, Jayson Jones, Isaiah Raikes and Trill Carter were all D-line transfers to Auburn and are all out of eligibility. The two most productive players coming back are junior Bobby Jamison-Travis and freshman Malik Blocton. There are some fabulous freshmen in the recruiting class, but the Tigers need significant help to bridge the gap.
Linebackers Eugene Asante, Dorian Mausi and Austin Keys are all moving on and made 167 tackles this year. Again, there are some super talented young guys, but a couple of veteran tacklers would be nice. In the end there are always other needs, but these to me are the most important. May your portal days be merry and bright!
Andy Graham is a co-host of Auburn Blitz and his column appears here weekly.
