re: 2018 Football Recruiting Thread -- Final OP Update Edition

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Auburn scouts New Orleans safety

Joe Foucha had an interesting visitor at practice on Monday.

The 3-star safety from McDonogh 35 (La.) went through another day of spring practice with Auburn defensive backs coach Greg Brown roaming the sidelines with a video camera. Brown, in the midst of his first recruiting cycle with the Tigers, was filming Foucha’s practice regimen. Known to be a big film guy, Brown likely wants every piece of evaluation material he can get his hands on.

It also indicates something else. Auburn is showing strong interest in the 33rd-ranked safety in the nation, according to 247Sports composite rankings.

As Foucha puts it, his contact with Auburn is near the top — up there with Arkansas, Notre Dame and Florida.

“The communication has been very good,” Foucha told SEC Country. “When am I coming up? When am I coming to camp? It’s always stuff like that. They just always try to get me to come up. I’d just been keeping in contact and never seen the place, so the conversations have always been, ‘When are you coming up to get the feel of it?’ I’ve always told them I want to keep in touch.”

There have been a few times Foucha has planned to make the trip to Auburn, most recently the January junior day when a few of his McDonogh 35 teammates — including receiver target Lawrence Keys III — made the trip. Foucha wasn’t able to, but not because he didn’t want to.

That’s about to change.

Foucha will visit Auburn on Saturday, which will be his first time on campus despite many previous efforts to do so.

“I’m going up for the 6th, and it’ll be my first time going. I’ve been wanting to go. I’m excited to see the place,” Foucha said. “I want to get a feeling of it. I really just want to see the place because the coaches already have a good vibe.”

In the past, Foucha has referred to Auburn as a “dream school,” stemming from his adolescent fandom of Cam Newton.

That’s one of Foucha’s biggest pieces of excitement when he makes it to Auburn over the weekend. Despite being a safety target, Foucha wants to feel the full Newton experience on his visit and see what life was like for one of his favorite players on the Plains.

“I’m very excited to see where he developed at, some of his years there as a quarterback,” he said.

After this visit, Foucha plans to reduce his top list of schools.

He holds offers from 22 programs, including Auburn, Alabama, Baylor, Florida State, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia Tech and others. Foucha said it’s Arkansas, Oregon and Kansas that are recruiting him the hardest, but he — especially with Brown’s visit to New Orleans — expects his Auburn contact to pick up after the visit.

From there, he hopes to get down to 10 or fewer schools, a decision he will announce in a little more than two weeks.

“I’m releasing my top [schools] on May 17,” Foucha said. “When I narrow it down, I’ll still be open, but those will be the schools I want to keep in contact with. Get May 17 out of the way, drop the top schools and hopefully it leads to getting a little smaller. … There’s a few schools standing out to me right now.”

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