ATLtiger12

Here is my personal top 10. Based on nothing other than vibes and what I have read/heard:

1) Byrum Brown- No brainer here. Elite college athlete, at the most important position on the field, playing in a system he is more than familiar with. Better than any QB we had under Hugh and can immediately help us turn our program around year 1.

2) Bryson Washington- Not a position of need at all, but his highlights are legit. Honestly reminds me a lot of Jarquez Hunter running the ball. Coincidently enough, both him and Hunter had nearly identical yards after contact numbers (both top 10 in the country) 2 years ago. Was only a 3 star recruit, but an extremely physical runner, has good patience and vision. Pairing him with Cobb and Brown in the backfield is going to be fun.

3) Da'Shawn Womack- Experienced and talented Edge player at a big position of need. Guy has NFL build and was a highly rated recruit. Has been around the SEC for 3 years now, and has contributed at each of his stops. Stats aren't anything crazy, but apparently he grades out as a really good run stopper as well. Seems like a solid replacement for Faulk/Amaris and has the potential for a breakout senior season.

4) Joseph Simmons- Had to lockdown a starting left tackle and this appears to be the guy. I think he is my favorite of our o-lineman additions. 4 years of experience and plenty of starts and snaps played at JMU. You know he has received quality coaching under the likes of Cignetti and Chesney. Has playoff experience as well and been a part of some really great offenses.

5) Cole Best- USF's best offensive lineman last year and well regarded in the transfer portal. Will be really nice to have a Center that knows the offensive calls and is familiar with the QB. Also, gives us the option to slide Ellis to a guard spot where he can develop more before he is ready to take over at center.

6) Buddy Mathis Jr.- LSU brought in 4 or 5 defensive lineman in their recruiting cycle last year and I think this guy played the most out of the bunch in 2025. Should pair really nice with a lot of true sophomore defensive studs we have coming back. Really solid pickup at a position of need that should serve this year and potentially the next few years.

7) Andre Jordan Jr.- Cornerback was a huge position of need in the portal after losing our top two. Once again we got a guy with 3 full years of experience and a lot of starts in the Big Ten. Might not have the top end talent of Crawford, but he has gotten better every year in college and had one of the highest forced incompletion %'s in the Big Ten last year. We have a lot of talent and guys that can play different positions in our DB room, but this guy should lock down one of our outside corner positions.

8) Keshaun Singleton/Jeremiah Koger- Cheating here but pretty excited about both of these guys. Obviously we lost a lot of talent at WR in the portal, but these were the top 2 WR's from USF last year and should be easy plug and play guys. Both of them have great size and look the part of an SEC WR, and it helps that they already know the offense and the QB. Singleton has a lot of experience and was going to end up at a P4 program somewhere. Koger on the other hand was a true freshman who broke out at the end of last year, and could be a potential rising star in this offense.

9) Jake Johnson- We severely needed to upgrade the TE room in the portal and, while not flashy, I think this guy is a solid upgrade for Auburn. Was the top TE out of high school, and has experience in the SEC and now playing under Belichick. Should be able to run block and catch the ball well.

10) Nate Johnson- I'll round it with Nate Johnson, a guy who put up big time numbers at App State a few years ago, and then was a solid player on a really good Missouri defense behind a few other guys. If nothing else he gives us options at Edge rusher, which we need. Breakout year similar to what we got from Keyron Crawford this year is a possibility, or potentially just some more experience and depth if a guy like Jared Smith takes a step forward. Not a bad piece to add.

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With the upcoming games, I don't know how this team can even think of NCAAs if they don't win tonight. Could easily be 2-5 in the league after the Florida game Saturday.

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Agreed. Definitely why I think this game is so important. We still have 5 more games against Ole Miss, Texas, Miss State, Oklahoma, and LSU after tonight, all of which are very winnable. Then you always hope to split against Alabama, get Kentucky and Vandy at home, and Arkansas and Tennessee are beatable although much more difficult on the road.

There are still a lot of games left and a path to a 10 win conference season, but we can’t afford to lose tonight and fall that far behind. Just have to take it one game at a time and keep trying to improve throughout the season.

This is a big game for the team tonight. Can’t afford to lose any more to teams below us in NET. Need to hold serve at home and against the teams we should be better than.

Hopefully Hall is healthy and can get back to his normal self tonight and Road Haad comes to play. We at least found a way to win when the offense wasn’t clicking last game. Defense has gotten better in SEC play, but is time to start putting the pieces together.

I am not personally surprised or concerned by any of the names we have heard so far. As others have mentioned, this is a coaching change so there is going to be a lot of turnover in the roster. Certain guys aren’t going to fit the scheme and a lot of guys are going to be asked to take pay cuts based on the current needs and production. Also, since the portal isn’t technically open yet, it makes sense that you are only going to hear the names of people expressing their intent to leave the program. Teams shouldn’t be allowed to really contact other players yet, and although I’m sure stuff is happening behind the scenes, that information shouldn’t be public. So it is going to sound worse since the information is all going to be one way until we get closer to the portal actually opening.

So far from the names that are planning to enter the portal there is really 1 expected starter: Malcolm Simmons and maybe 2 expected contributors: Perry and Carter. All of which can be replaced. We have yet to hear anything from the actual known projected starters: Cam, Deuce, Cobb, Xavier Atkins, Crawford, Blockton, Amaris Williams, Malindez, our safeties.

Those are the guys that should be our actual priorities, and I think it’s clear those are the guys our staff is having serious conversations with and negotiating with. We won’t keep all of them more than likely, but the fact we haven’t heard anything about them tells me that’s where their priorities are and other guys are making decisions because they didn’t like what the initially heard. And that’s okay. We need some turnover in this roster and need to be smart about how we use our money to fill out the best roster possible. There will be plenty of options in the portal to fill out a solid roster if you can hold onto as much of the core starters as possible.

We could have ran the ball 40+ times and let JA run and put up massive numbers. Also, Hugh and others said we were once again taking what was given to us by the defense. Ball State was in quarters most of the game and refused to give up the explosive play. So we checked it down on hitches and outs all game long with solid efficiency. Also, Hugh noted that some of the sacks might have been due to us calling deep shots against coverage designed to prevent those.

I think the pass protection still needs some work. JA can thankfully bail us out of some of those, but we don’t want to rely on that. I haven’t seen many drops at all from receivers this year. I agree that our RB’s are solid but not world beaters. Based on the talent of our receivers, that’s probably alright. I really like that the coaching staff and QB are taking what’s given to them. That’s all we need to do to keep the chains moving and not turn it over. Great receivers to spread it to, solid RB’s, and a QB that can make the right read and take off when necessary makes for a pretty solid offense.

On defense, I really like what I see in the run game and pass rush. Secondary has plenty of depth. Defense will ultimately come down to turnovers and red zone stops in big games.

This team has enough talent to beat most teams on the schedule, but we will learn a lot in the Oklahoma and A&M games. Can this team get key first downs, and complete passes in big 4th quarter moments? Can the defense tackle and get off the field in big moments? We won’t know until we get in those situations. Looking forward to finding out.

He was driving the best I’ve seen all season the past few games leading up to A&M. He had been shooting poorly from 3 l, but made a huge impact driving and dishing against Ole Miss and Kentucky. We did not see that tonight though. Probably was partially because he was shooting lights out from 3. But I agree, when he slows it down and drives it brings a dynamic that nobody else does this team. We didn’t see that tonight, but that’s what we need going forward, mixed in with a few 3’s to boot.

No need to overreact to this game. Awful sandwich game missing a key piece of our defense. This was a huge game for them on senior night with us down key pieces. Like others have said, if we beat Bama at home on our senior night (which is our entire team) this will be a blip on the season and we may hold onto #1 ranking to end the season. Duke may even lose to a hot UNC team that desperately needs a win to clinch a tournament bid.

With that being said, I was still very impressed with our offensive performance. We out shot them in every way from the field and free throw line. Entire difference of the game was their offensive boards which were stupid. We need Broome to get his mojo back for sure, but nobody else in the nation can do what they did on the boards tonight. Let’s reset and go on a 10 game win streak now.

We fell from +36.9 to 36.65 I think. Fell like 7 spots in defensive efficiency. Texas had like 60 points with 4 minutes left before some tough fouls/techs went against us and definitely some clutch shots from Texas. Duke had a major leap for sure to close the gap.

At the end of the day, this is the best Auburn basketball team we’ve had since our final four season, and may be one of the best I get to watch in my life time. I’m not going to nitpick the final minutes of a road game against a solid Texas team. We are going to get everyone’s best shot and it’s we aren’t going to get perfection in every game for 40 straight minutes. Learn from it and keep on winning. This team is too much fun to get down about how it played out.

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He got benched because their offense imploded, and when that happens the first move is to go to the backup QB as a scapegoat move. The literal same thing happened here with Thorne being "benched" for Brown. OU's backup was worse than Arnold, and Arnold was inserted back into the starting lineup to end the season.

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All of this is accurate. I’m not saying Arnold is guaranteed to solve our issues. But it sounds like Arnold is may be Hugh’s favorite at the moment. And it’s not crazy, as currently there is no can’t miss QB in the portal. Arnold at least was a 5 star, with clear talent and potential, and has played against SEC competition. With Arnold, or any QB we go after, you’re going to be banking on our WR talent being legit next year, Freeze being able to scheme them open, and plugging some holes on the OL through the portal. If all that happens, I don’t think it’s crazy to think Arnold could live up to his high school hype. With guys like Murphy, Mensah, and others your taking risk on all the forementioned plus a huge jump in competition.

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Depressing yet encouraging at the same time

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This. The stats show that poor red zone play, and turnovers early in the season killed us. We moved the ball great between the 20’s and could not finish drives. How many games did we outgain opponents and lose? Also, penalties, sacks, and garbage time yards skewed some of the stats, as well as some general bad luck.

This team really should be a 7 win possibly 8 win team if not for completely improbable losses against Oklahoma and Mizzou. But we also lost games to teams we clearly out talent which concerns me. Still at the end of the day, if we go all in and can find a Cam Ward type QB in the off-season my expectations would be playoff next year with our schedule.