The Auburn football roster is almost complete under Hugh Freeze

It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Auburn football is almost out of scholarships as Hugh Freeze done enough. Freezing temperatures are likely for several hours inland and a few hours closer to the coast. Yes. You are locked on Auburn, your daily podcast on Auburn Tiger. I'm your host Zach Blocker. Thank you so much for making Lockdown Auburn your first listen every single day. And we are joined for a third Friday the first and way too long, Justin Ferguson of the Auburn Observer. And we jumped when we connected Ferg. Auburn has like a totally different roster from the last time you came on the show. Absolutely. I mean, I think the last time I was on this was pre Peyton Thornton. This is pre some of the receivers they've gotten. One of the offensive linemen. I mean, it's been a minute and this team is at a point now where they could, I mean, without your secondaries is the big one, but like at least on offense, they could get if they could run a whole group out there almost that is just of guys that just got here. And that's that's exactly what this team needed. Yep. Yep. Some of it I think is depth. Some of it I think is moves for the future. And I think on some of these guys are going to start right away, which is very, very fun. So it seems like Auburn is at 82 scholarships counting some of the guys that were gifted scholarships a year ago, assuming this the staff honors though Sean Jackson, Jake Levant. I think Shane Hooks is going to pick Auburn. So we'll see this is, you know, he's been like the last two days in Auburn. So we'll see we're recording this Thursday morning. You may have committed by the time this goes up. We'll see. But are they done? What else? Can they add in your mind for because there's one glaring weakness when I look at this roster and I'm curious to see what you have to say. Yeah, it's free said they have one more guy visiting this weekend. I'm not sure who that is because I'm not on as top on not as on top of things with recruiting realm as like the folks who cover it day to day. But to me, if I'm Auburn and I'm thinking like you need, you have a couple spots to play with, I feel like you'd feel a lot more comfortable if you had another edge rusher. That's the one that I just kind of, that kind of stands out to me is like, okay, you would love to go get that. You know, maybe another safety or a defensive back because they have, they've talked to about some of those guys because I think you would love to have another kind of bridge piece between this like really experienced, really veteran secondary and then what you got coming behind it and just feeling good about your depth there. So they got a couple spots to play with right now. But yeah, I mean, edge rusher kind of feels like something that I would say, you know, if you're going out and getting three receivers, you know, in this, in this portal window, I feel like you could definitely go get two edge rushes. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the biggest thing. It's just the Jack in the past rushing situation. And I mean, even if you wanted to go get more of a defensive end guy, this is a good pass rusher. Right. Yep. Yep. They haven't really been able to find that consistently. I mean, Jalen McLeod, I think it was a great pickup that Uquo guy's name isn't, I mean, he doesn't seem to be going away, which that could be a huge, huge get. But absolutely. And freeze talked about it at the, at the region's golf tournament talking about like how great McLeod is, you know, an elite pass rusher at all. So I mean, is he enough to kind of fill all of that role? I don't know. I feel like you need a little bit more. I feel like you could use more if you could get it. I like Jalen McLeod a lot. I wrote about him a few weeks ago. I did a film room on him. He's fascinating, man. Like this is a guy that I think makes a lot of sense for a Ron Roberts defense because, you know, you think about Ron Roberts, he is a master of, of, you know, simulated pressures and, and, you know, mixing and matching and sending different guys and dropping others. Jalen McLeod is a really good edge rusher that looks like a linebacker that looks just like a size wise is just like a normal linebacker. So I think he fits in perfectly because we already know he's a really good pass rusher. He was very efficient last season, one of the most efficient, you know, FPS pass rusher last year showed out against Texas A&M and some other schools that really stand out. But also like it's not just, you know, you line him up before a snap. You don't necessarily know if he's coming or he's going and like that is going to help with the versatility of this defense. And so I think McLeod's going to be a great pickup. McLeod also was a guy that was mostly a third down dude at, at, at App State. So, you know, do you, do you feel good enough in what you got with your, with your guys, you know, early downs and, and, you know, being, it's just, it's interesting because I, I think you can, you can get a lot out of Elijah McAllister in a role. I think, I think Kildrick Falk has the potential to play a play really well right away. I think a guy like Cam Riley, especially you bring in somebody like Larry Nixon, I think a guy like Cam Riley can move around in your defense, but, you know, is, is, could you do more? Could you, could you do, you know, a little bit more with your pass rush? Just because that's the biggest thing you're having to reload. Derek Hall, Echo Leota, even guys like Colby Wood. And like, you don't have them around anymore. And that's Marcus Bragg. I mean, your depth is going to, yeah. It's, it's, and you've got your, your defensive lineman that you have coming back. They can get into the backfield. Just not as, you don't have a ton of pass rushing, you know, experience like a Marcus Harris is not like your, your, your most established pass rusher up front is probably Messiah and a silicate. And like he had a good run with that at Maryland, but like, you know, you would love to have more, especially because for the better part of the last decade of Auburn football, you've been used to Auburn just having dudes that can tear it up off the edge. And just in pass rush, whether it is the guys with their hands in the dirt up front or, you know, guys that are, that are, they're firing off on the outside. Yeah. And you mentioned Messiah. I love that they put him at the three and a defensive in throughout spring. I think you're going to see a similar thing with Kelldrick Falk as far as putting him at Jack and strong side defensive and moving forward. This is kind of what I've been told. And so I think big enough for it. Definitely. Yeah. And I think, I think with Imba leaving, like I don't think they have that clear backup defensive end. And so I think he's going to probably get more reps there than a lot of people think. But even guys like Jason Jones and Justin Rogers and all of these guys, like they're all playing multiple spots, which I like because then it allows you to put the true like best group of guys on the field. You know, you're not like pigeonhole in these dudes. You're giving them the options to play as much as possible and kind of giving yourself, you know, if your coach Garrett, even the line coach, giving him more options as far as you know, these are all the guys on the field more. So let's figure out different ways to use them. I love all of that. Is that going to equate into a better pass rush for? I don't know. But I think it certainly sets you up. I think it puts you in a situation to do it. You just got to execute. I think the good news for Auburn is that, you know, Garrett had one of the best pass rushes in the country last year. And he did it with a variety of types of players. You go look at who Liberty who got Liberty sacks last year. They're undersized guys. They're big guys. I mean, they're it's just a mix and match. That's a good sign. And then on top of that, like I said earlier, Ron Roberts, this is what he's known for. He is known for generating pass rushes, creative and effective pass rushes. And so that's why I said, like when Jana McLeod signed with Auburn, he's like, he's like the perfect fit for this defense. And, you know, Auburn's defense right now is not what it wants to be long term. We know that like they're reloading through the transfer portal. They're getting a lot of these group of five guys or some of these smaller and power five guys to have a team, have a competitive team in year one. This is defense has not arrived yet. And they've got a long way to go to be where they wanted to be. But yeah, I will make the point that I think that for this particular roster and this particular defense, Ron Roberts is one of the best defensive coordinators you can get because he has a history of doing more with less and just having to get creative. So if you don't have a ton of natural pass rushes on your team right now, well, why not have the defensive coordinator that will send anybody and anybody, everybody and anybody to get after the quarterback and do it and create was how many natural pass rushes are on this team right now? Um, couple, maybe like, you know, like, you know, can we count calderick yet? Like, yeah, like exactly like his calderick that guy. I think he's got every tool in the world to be that guy. But again, he was playing high school football last year and he was playing a lower level of competition last year at Highland home. Now what's impressive and it's like, it reminds me a lot of, of Mon Adams to be a guy who was a five star by rivals or a high four star by everybody else. Top 100 player, top 75 player in a lot of cases and come from that level of competition. I think you're doing something crazy good and you're showing out in these kind of combines and stuff. Mon Adams is the same thing. Mon Adams is a five star top 10 player in the country. If you've ever been to where Mon Adams is from, it is one of the tiniest places in Georgia. And like, you know, you have to, you have to really, really stand out. It ain't like, it ain't like you're playing seven eight ball of these places and you're going up against really, really good competition every week and you're having that opportunity. You're having to dominate at your level and then having to go to these places and show off as well. So I think it's good time for Kellogg, I think it's good time for his adaptability. Because the dude who enrolled early this year, you know, he looked like he belonged and, and they want to just a few months earlier, he was playing what two, a three a football, like that's, that says a lot about him. Yeah, there's no doubt. Did Hugh Freeze do enough this off season to complete the roster? Let's discuss in just a moment right here on lock.au. Today's show brought to you by our new friends at Bird Dog's Ferg. When I hopped on, you're probably like, man, Zach, you look more handsome than normal. And I'll say it. You're right. You're right. Cause I'm sporting some bird dogs. You can't see them, but just the confidence that I exude when I wear bird dog shorts. It's great because they, they fit great. They're comfortable in their versatile. I mean, name another pair of pants you can record a podcast with. And after this, I'm going to go drop my child off at my mom's and then I'm going to go run some errands. Then I'm going to go to the gym and I don't have to change shorts at all because of bird dogs. Head over to birddogs.com slash locked on college. And when you do enter promo code locked on college, all one word, no spaces and they'll throw in a free custom bird dogs yeti style tumbler. If you're in every day or you saw me drinking out of it when I recorded some shows earlier this week. Use promo code locked on college when you go to bird dogs.com slash locked on college. They've got all types of different swag to wear, but it's all very, very comfortable, very, very versatile. Once again, birddogs.com slash locked on college using promo code locked on college. Just a Ferguson with the Auburn observers. So we've seen Auburn be one of the more active teams in the transfer portal, which we all expected just because of the glaring holes on this roster. As you freeze, do enough and we saw him address several positions of needs. We talked about past Russia to some extent. We both feel like maybe there's a chance and more of that's coming. Office of line was obvious. He did that. Wide receiver was obvious. He's got a lot of talent to do. We'll see if it works out or not. Did he do enough in your mind, Ferg? I think he did enough to make Auburn a competitive team in 2023, which was the goal. You can't expect miracles to happen in the transfer portal because you want to build a championship caliber roster over time through high school recruiting. That's what Georgia did. That's what Alabama has done. That's what LSU is trying to do. That's what you're going up against. Auburn was just in such a tough spot because the last couple of years, they were so far below what the expectations are in recruiting here that they had to reload this way. On top of that, somebody has left. You inherited a bad situation. I think Auburn has done as well as anybody in the portal this off season, which they needed to do to get competitive. Let's not kid ourselves. It's still going to be an uphill battle this year. They're Vegas line six and a half. That feels right. I feel like Auburn could go over it. I would lean towards Auburn going over it. I had a mail back question last week when people were like, hey, so 2013, you go from a losing team to going to the national title. Compare that team to this team talent-wise. It's like, man, that 13 team had a ton of talent. It had just gotten underused and just was everything just fell apart in 12. This is a completely different situation. For Auburn, are they capable of exceeding expectations this year? Yes. They're going to be more comfortable on the line of scrimmage. Did they address some of their biggest needs? Absolutely. They did a lot of those things. You're going to have to get all those guys to mesh and click well in a short amount of time and do it in the most competitive conference and in the most competitive division in college football. It's not going to be easy, but this is definitely a huge win this off season for Auburn, and we'll see how far it takes them. One of the main reasons why Auburn hired Hugh Freeze, what appealed to the people who were making this decision was they knew he was capable of this. Maybe he didn't know they were capable of building an entire offensive lineup through the transfer program because nobody had done that before, but they thought he would be able to recruit this right away. With the portal being what it is, the instant impact recruiting is what they needed. I think he's done enough to make this team competitive this year, but he said it in himself. The ultimate test of how successful the Hugh Freeze tenure is going to be at Auburn is going to be how they do in the 2024 and 2025 recruiting classes. That's what's going to give you a stay in power. This right now is just making sure you can put a competitive team out there to get more people interested in what you're selling. I think the transfer portal, I think it raises your floor, but I think the recruiting, it raises the ceiling of the program. I think you feel the few holes, which is huge, but as far as long term success, he knows it. He's recruiting harder than anybody right now. I wrote about earlier this week, the majority of the guys you have with the transfer portal are experienced dudes who are looking for a step up in a competition towards the end of their careers, which is you'll take that. You need a dude who have played football and will be able to, they're hungry, they've got something to prove. Which is the best version of the transfer portal. A guy that didn't get these big offers and all of a sudden, the other people wanted that. That's pretty cool. Now, you've also gotten in a few cases, two really stand out to me here, where you get guys that are more in line with who you're trying to recruit out of high school and you'll have them for a while. That's Caleb Burton and tomorrow, I told it. Those guys, you want more Caleb Burton and tomorrow, tote on some of it for, but you want to get them out of high school as well. Obviously, it was just a year for both of them. You might as well be getting them out of high school. Those are the big swings you make. You're allowed to take those big swings and take those, and I'm not saying reaches because they're very talented players, but they're not proven yet at the college level. Man, if they can click, it looks really, really good. You can do that once you have four offensive linemen set. When you have a Nick Marner, a Jair, shorter at wide receiver, so it's like, okay, these guys can do it. We know that they can do it at the college level. This guy can click as well. If Caleb Burton can be who he's capable of being, then that really raises your ceiling. Yeah, you're right. The majority of Auburn's transfers are floor stabilizers. You got a couple of ceiling razors, and what you do when high school recording is going to ultimately determine how high that ceiling goes. Yeah, and a lot of these guys, like you said, you're swinging for the fences with, you mentioned, Jair, shorter is one. His health seems to be a question. If he can stay healthy, he can pop off. Who do you think- Having a touchdown nearly half of your catches last year is pretty impressive. It's ridiculous. 46, 48, something like that. That's wild. I'll take that. Keeps that ratio. That'd be incredible. Most of these guys, though, are like G5 dudes leveling up their playing experience. Who do you think of all the transfers is the most sure thing that he's brought in? Oh, wow. That's a great question. While you're thinking, I think it's Avery Jones. That's center. Yeah, Avery Jones was the first one that popped into my head as well. It's because he was so highly touted coming out of ECU as like, this is one of the best centers in the country. He grades out super well. And Auburn, also the fact that Auburn moved to heaven and earth to try to flip him when he was like literally on his way to Illinois is a good sign. I think that. And then you always want to say this with an asterisk because it's a quarterback. I mean, Peyton Thorne led a team to a New Year's Six Bowl and is really, really good with a great running game next to him. So, I mean, that's the other one that you can see that's like, oh, wow, that could really, really, you know, and that's what you want with your quarterback, right? If you're going to bring in a quarterback, you need to bring in somebody you feel like is going to, you know, make you better immediately. And he's that guy. Yeah, those three, that first three rounds of first three offensive linemen that they got in are all like, they're proven, they're proven at this point. And, you know, I think Jones is the one as the guy that had other big time interest from from from power five schools. That's the one you want to you want to keep an eye on. Are you mentioned Peyton Thorne? And I think he's closer to a sure thing that a lot of people want to give him credit for. So let's discuss is there a quarterback competition coming? We discussed that in just a moment right here on locked on Auburn. When I encourage you to join the locked on our discord, it is free. I have to just click the link in the episode description down below. As always, quarterbacks are very polarizing, especially with the Auburn fan base because we just want to be upset and highly opinionated about everything, which is great, which is why this is all so, so fun. And I think Peyton Thorne, I don't think he's guaranteed the starting job, but like, I think he's got like a 95% chance of winning the starting job. I mean, I think something really, really dramatic would have to happen for Robbie Asford to get the first snap of the season in 2023. I think you're in a scenario where you may see multiple quarterbacks in the beginning of the year that some freeze is done in the past when he's had a quarterback competition with the transfer, the transfer also really won out in Shaq Kelly. But yeah, he came in for a reason. And it's one of the things where it's like, if you were capable of being like, if Peyton Thorne is capable of being what Peyton Thorne's been in his first two seasons of his college career, he's Auburn's best option at quarterback because of the way he can throw the ball. And just for this offense to operate the way this offense wants to do, stretching the field vertically and horizontally with the passing game, you need to have that kind of passing element. Now, am I saying that Robbie Asford is incapable of becoming a good passer? Absolutely not. I mean, he played through injuries last year or he was in a system that didn't fit him. He could definitely do it. But, you know, when you bring in a transfer, if you go through that and you bring in a transfer and not just a transfer, a guy who had started a couple of years and Michigan State wasn't necessarily like, you know, say, Oh, goodbye, you know, we'll make like they wanted him to stay. State wanted him to hang around there for sure that they tried a little bit of revision his history on that one. Sure. And every fan base who loses a player is going to be like, Oh, that guy's not actually any good. No, I think I think Peyton Thorne, you hear you free talk Wednesday night about his leadership, the fabulous two time team captain to Michigan State. They think he's the guy that can come in and give Auburn a lot of what it's been missing at the quarterback's spot and on offense. And I think with the running game, Auburn is capable of having this year. He fits really, really well because in games, I wrote about it a couple weeks ago in games when Michigan State ran over 150 yards in those games. He averaged like nearly 10 yards in attempt and only lost one game. Like he was awesome in these last couple of years. So Barbara can give him what I think they're capable of giving him. He can really raise the potential of this football team this year, 100%. So he's got to be the favorite. He's going to be the clear favorite. Now, I think Robbie Asford has kept really good attitude about this. There's one thing that that freeze talked about on Wednesday night about how they've had positive conversations about all this. I think Robbie Asford, even if he's not starring quarterback, I think you find ways to get that dude on the field just because man, top five running quarterback in college football last year helped to win Auburn to one of the best rushing performances against an X-Amen defense ever. You use that, but yeah, you bring in a guy like this for a reason and you don't leave a situation like you did at Michigan State where you were the returning starter to necessarily come and sit on the bench. Yeah, I'm with you. So we'll certainly see what that competition looks like, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't Peyton Thorne. Do you? We both know that playing quarterback isn't just throwing the football and assessing defense. I mean, there's a major leadership aspect and component to all of this. And I've made a big deal about past cashers on this roster, tweeting out and publicly like saying to other quarterbacks and they've entered the portal like, Hey, come to Auburn. Do you think that's, am I reading too much into that or is that like, no, Robbie doesn't have this room? He doesn't have this locker room. I think I think it's more of a thing that they feel like competition is going to make this seem better everywhere. And that's kind of the mindset. But yeah, I mean, I think you can't, the story that came out of the spring for Auburn football was where they were not where they wanted to be in the passing game. And quarterback is obviously a huge component of that. So yeah, I mean, with guys publicly recruiting, you know, dudes to come play a quarterback, you know, I don't think it's a situation of like, you know, Robbie Ashford doesn't have the support. It seems there anything like, I think it's more of like, Hey, we got to get better. And dude, you can make us better. Whether it is you're going to start or you're going to push the guys who are already here, like Robbie Ashford, like holding gear to make us better. And so they thought I think Peyton Thorns is definitely going to do that. Yeah, I'm with you. Ferg, how can people check out everything you've got going on, buddy? Auburn Desover.com, it's $6 a month or $60 a year. Got a ton of stuff right now. We got the football and basketball roster trackers. I had film room this week on, I get a Burton mailbags out today. I had a, you know, a lot of stuff from Bruce Pearl and John Cohen and Hugh Fries from, from the ambush to her. So you can check all that out. Big notebook from those guys. And we've got a ton of stuff going on right now with all of our podcasts and all of our newsletters, Auburn Desover.com. Kind of check it out, we email everything to you as soon as it drops about 6 a.m. central time, most weekday mornings. Yep. Worth every penny folks, AuburnObserver.com. You can follow me on socials at ZBlackerBe and find all my written work at AuburnDaily.com. We will see you on Monday. This has been Locked On Auburn. A prime member, you can listen to this Lockdown podcast ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today!