AUBURN | It couldn’t have gone much better as far as Blake Woodby is concerned.
The four-star and nation’s No. 4 cornerback spent the weekend in Auburn on an official visit.
“It went great. The visit exceeded every expectation I could possibly think of,” said Woodby. “Coach Crime had the red carpet laid out for me. It was my mom’s first-ever visit here. She loved it. She would feel comfortable with me coming here.”
Woodby, 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, has one big factor that outweighs the rest when it comes to choosing a school.
“The family aspect of it,” he said. “I want to know I’m playing for someone that really cares about me. That’s my biggest thing. Going hard for someone you know cares about you outside of football, makes you play better and makes you feel like, ‘I can lay it on the line for these guys in this building.’”
Did Woodby get that family feeling at Auburn”
“Yes, yes, for sure,” he said. “Just the family aspect of it. I can talk about anything with Coach Freeze and it’s reassuring to get that from the guys on the team. It’s one thing to learn it but it’s kinda hard to not believe anything is true when everybody on the team is saying the same thing.
When I think about Coach Crime’s track record of being a good man, everybody on the team has the same testimony that he is a great man and he cares about his players. That’s something that’s at the top of my list right now.”
Woodby plans to return to Auburn at the end of July for Big Cat Weekend. He plans official visits to Cincinnati June 14 and Maryland June 21. He plans additional visits to Oregon in November and “probably” Georgia in the fall.
Woodby recently de-committed from Ohio State. He’s planning to hold off on a final decision until midway through his senior season, but Auburn appears to be in pretty good shape coming out of this weekend’s visit.
“You already know where it is. They just stand right where they are as far as the totem pole with my other official visits,” said Woodby. “This is my first one so I’ve got a couple more to go to figure out what I want to do.
“Me committing really early made me put a different lens on just jumping at the gun and making decisions that aren’t rational. Just having to sit down and me and my parents look at the process and look at what the best options are.”
Woodby, from Baltimore, Md., is ranked as the nation’s No. 38 overall prospect.