AUBURN | Coaches drive into their players the need to finish. Finish drills, finish plays and finish games. When it comes to recruiting, Auburn’s coaches did a little finishing of their own.
The Tigers closed out the early signing period with seven additions over the final three days to rise in the Rivals team recruiting rankings from 41st to 15th.
“As far as the energy goes, that’s exactly what you hope will happen,” said Auburn coach Bryan Harsin. “You build momentum; that’s really what we did, we built momentum. We did that because of the players making the decisions to come to Auburn. That’s part of it, too.
“One of the things that I know is important to players is they want to play with other good players. They want to be around great teammates. They want to be around guys who care as much as they do about their success.”
The ball started rolling downhill Monday with key commitments from Rivals100 defensive back Austin Ausberry and 4-star junior college safety Marquise Gilbert.
The Tigers added two more Tuesday in 3-star defensive tackle Enyce Sledge and 4-star cornerback JaDarian Rhym, who was previously committed to LSU.
Wednesday’s Signing Day brought three big additions from 4-star junior college cornerback Keionte Scott, 4-star linebacker Robert Woodyard, who flipped from Alabama, and 4-star wide receiver Camden Brown.
Auburn’s not done. Four-star junior college defensive tackle Jeffrey M’ba plans to announce his decision on Sunday and a number of AU’s top remaining targets are expected to wait until the late signing period, Feb. 2, including Rivals100 running back TreVonte’ Citizen, 5-star offensive tackle Julian Armella, 3-star offensive guard Jalen Farmer and 4-star lineman Antavious Woody.
Signing a top 15 class Wednesday should be beneficial to Harsin and his staff as they try to add more highly-recruited high school players to the 2022 class. That goes for the players they’ll be pursuing in the transfer portal as well.
“That's really what every person wants, to be part of something bigger than themselves, to be part of an environment where improvement is being made day after day — then to spend time on their own personal growth,” said Harsin. “When you make that decision, that's what this allows you to do. Our momentum was built off of players making those decisions, because it's a life-changing decision to pick Auburn for those guys.”
