Strong finish pushes Auburn into the Top 10

AUBURN | Nine and a half weeks ago Auburn wrapped up a 6-6 regular season with an Iron Bowl loss. Shortly thereafter defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and secondary coach Travaris Robinson — two of Auburn’s best recruiters — bolted for South Carolina.

Gus Malzahn didn’t hire a new defensive coordinator until right after Auburn’s win over Memphis in the Birmingham Bowl and eventually had to hire three more assistants over the following two weeks.

With that much turnover after a disappointing season, there were a lot of questions how Auburn would finish out the 2016 class. Not many gave the Tigers a chance to finish with a seventh-straight top 10 class.

But that’s exactly what Malzahn and his newly formulated staff did Wednesday.

Auburn closed with a flourish, adding five Signing Day commitments including Rivals100 wide receiver Nate Craig-Myers and five-star defensive tackle Derrick Brown. Late Wednesday afternoon the class was holding on at No. 9 in the Rivals.com team recruiting rankings.

“I think it says a lot. Because that’s hard to do,” said Malzahn of navigating through recruiting with four new coaches. “When you lose a defensive coordinator and you lose a secondary coach – we lost three defensive coaches – but it says a lot about the rest of our staff. With Coach (Rodney) Garner, holding that defensive class together until we were able to get Coach (Kevin) Steele, Coach (Wesley) McGriff and Coach (Travis) Williams.”

Another new addition, offensive line coach Herb Hand, was able to keep the commitment of Brodarious Hamm and secure a much-needed offensive tackle prospect in Prince Sammons, who chose the Tigers on Signing Day.

“Herb, first of all, is a very, very good recruiter and has a great reputation,” Malzahn said. “He’s a very good teacher, too. He was very instrumental in Prince. He had a relationship already. We identified him about a month ago and recruited him hard. I know Herb did a great job with him, and I know he’s excited to coach him. And Brodarious, I’ll say this too, he did a good job developing a relationship in a short period of time with Brodarious, too. I know he’s looking forward to playing for him, too.”

Auburn’s 21 signees are made up largely from its geographic base of Alabama (5), Georgia (6) and Florida (8). The Florida signees include two that played junior college in Mississippi.

Malzahn believes they landed the top prospect in Alabama (Marlon Davidson), Georgia (Brown) and Florida (Craig-Myers). It was the addition of Brown late Wednesday afternoon that topped off an impressive finish.

“I thought it was big that we signed the No. 1 player in the State of Georgia,” he said. “I think it’s the first time in school history we did that. Georgia is very important to our success. Almost half of our players are from the State of Georgia. That will give us great momentum for the future with that.”

The strength of Auburn’s class is the defensive line and wide receiver positions. In addition to Brown, Auburn inked Davidson, Antwuan Jackson and Nick Coe - all in the Rivals100 - junior college All-American Paul James III and Tashawn Manning.

The Tigers signed four wideouts: Craig-Myers and Elijah Stove are in the Rivals100, Kyle Davis is a four-star that enrolled in January and Marquis McClain was a standout at an Auburn camp this summer.

“Overall, this is a very good class,” Malzahn said. “The thing that really stands out to me is it's very talented, and these are high-character young men with great families. That's what we targeted. You heard me say a lot of times about we recruited this guy for two to three years, developing those relationships over a period of time. I think there is something really special that goes with that.

“I'm very excited. I know every year I've been here I've gotten up before you and said how excited I am, which I was, but this class is a little bit different. This class is a special class. It's probably from the standpoint that there are true impact players at impact positions. The defensive line sets the tone for defense. Receivers, guys who can make impact players with that. I'm real excited and real proud of our staff. This class, I think people will look back on in years to come.”

Recruiting, however, never stops. Even as the final National Letters of Intent were coming in Wednesday afternoon, Malzahn was working the phones and already building those relationships with the 2017 class.

“I appreciate our staff through the transition,” Malzahn said. “They just did a wonderful job. They are a very hard working, loyal staff. Just this morning they got me on the phone with close to 50 juniors. They are a hard-working group and the future is bright as far as recruiting goes.”