4/18/23 Football Articles

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si.com

 

Auburn football extends offer to transfer EDGE out of ULM

Matthew Jacobs

2–3 minutes

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Auburn offers portal transfer ULM OLB/EDGE Anthony Campbell

Auburn is trying to solidify depth at its EDGE position by extending an offer to Anthony Campbell from the ULM Warhawks.

Campbell, a six-foot-seven-inch monster weighing in at 283 pounds, is a Junior out of Bartow, Florida. He put up 13 tackles in his first year of college, 7 solo, and 6 assisted. 1 sack and 1 forced fumble over the course of playing in 5 games for the Warhawks.

He has turned into a fairly hot commodity in the transfer portal market with his size, length, and ability to get around the end and get to the quarterback.

Campbell has all the requirements one would look for to build quality depth and play a lot of snaps in the SEC. He would fill a severe need on Auburn’s defense going into 2023

Auburn Daily will keep you updated on his status as we will all the Auburn targets in the transfer portal.

Auburn football has seen three players officially depart this week, with Tar'Varish Dawson announcing intentions to transfer early Saturday morning.

Dawson joins the following Auburn Tigers that have announced that they will be in the transfer portal.

Defensive lineman Jeffrey M'ba

Linebacker Kameron Brown

Linebacker Desmond Tisdol

The Auburn Tigers have pulled in an impressive haul thus far during Hugh Freeze's first season on the Plains, currently sitting at No. 3 nationally in 247Sports' transfer portal class rankings.

You can check out our transfer portal tracker here. Stay up to date on all of the Tigers' commitments, departures, and prospects for key positions at auburndaily.com.

Edited April 18, 2023 by aubiefifty

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247sports.com

 

Jason Caldwell's Monday morning quarterback column

Jason Caldwell

5–6 minutes

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Roster uncertainty the norm in college sports

As we sit here on April 17, Auburn’s football coaches and Auburn’s baskeball coaches for both the men’s and women’s teams have an idea of what the roster will look like next season, but there’s nothing close to finality for any of the three. That’s really difficult considering how much time and effort goes into team building and trying to put a roster together through recruiting.

In the blink of an eye it can and usually does all change.

For a first-year coach like Hugh Freeze, the positives far outweigh the negatives but there are still questions that have to be addressed. Without the transfer portal I’m not sure Freeze would have had any opportunity to field a really competitive team in his first season on the Plains. Now that’s going to be possible, but just how competitive will be determined by what happens in the next three months or so. With just under two weeks left until this portal window closes, football teams will know where they stand with their current roster, but players that choose to look elsewhere don’t have to make a decision until school starts. That’s still plenty of uncertainty to deal with.

The same is true in basketball and it may be even more difficult because just a few players leaving a program means a good portion of your roster turns over every year. At the moment it sure feels like the days of developing players and having them grow in your program are over. It’s what UConn, San Diego State and even Florida Atlantic had that helped them navigate the NCAA Tournament. While they added some key transfers, the bulk of the key players came through the programs.

In the end, I still think that’s going to be the key to success. You can use the portal to fill in holes, but it still comes down to recruiting and developing. That may change down the road, but it’s still the way to winning championships at the moment.

Penta the magnificent

College softball is a game that can be won by one dominant pitcher. It’s what Alabama has done the past few seasons with Montana Fouts and Auburn is doing the same behind Maddie Penta. This season Auburn is 32-13 overall and 9-6 in SEC play and Penta has a record of 19-5 overall and an ERA of just 1.05. In league play she has won six of Auburn’s nine SEC wins and has an ERA of 1.19 against league foes.

That’s the stuff that can lead a team to the Women’s College World Series with just a little bit of offensive help. With the way that NCAA Regionals and Super Regionals work, having one pitcher that can almost guarantee you two wins in a weekend goes a long way towards making it to Oklahoma City. If Auburn can just find enough offense along the way, the Tigers will have a chance to play a long time this season with Penta leading the way.

Pitching numbers for Auburn baseball

Heading into the spring, if you had asked Butch Thompson and pitching coach Daron Schoenrock what the starting rotation was going to look like for the Tigers then you would have probably gotten an answer that included Joseph Gonzalez, Tommy Sheehan and Chase Allsup. Last season Gonzalez was 4-2 against SEC teams with an ERA of 3.20 in seven starts while Allsup was 1-0 with a 4.50 earned run average in 10 appearances. Coming back from Tommy John surgery, Sheehan really started hitting his stride late in the year and had a strong postseason.

At the halfway point of SEC play, Auburn stands at 5-10 and a big reason why has been the missing production from the trio to this point in the year. In 15 total games, Gonzalez has yet to pitch an inning for the Tigers while Sheehan and Allsup have combined to allow seven earned runs in seven and two/thirds innings. 

Despite continuing to give out way too many free passes, Auburn’s pitching did enough over the weekend to win a series at Alabama. The Tigers allowed just 14 runs in three games in Tuscaloosa, but won just one of them. The problem was that Auburn only scored 11 runs in three games. Outside of scoring just five runs at Arkansas on the opening weekend of SEC plays, the fewest the Tigers had scored this season in a series was 16 runs against Indiana to open the year.

Only Arkansas (9 to Tennessee), Mississippi State (13 to Ole Miss) and Alabama (11) allowed fewer runs this past weekend than Auburn’s pitching staff did. 

6COMMENTS

Arkansas (9), Florida (20), Georgia (23), Kentucky (33), LSU (25), Mississippi State (13), Ole Miss (15), Missouri (31), Texas A&M (19), South Carolina (20), Tennessee (18) and Vanderbilt (23).

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si.com

 

Auburn extends over to a west coast offensive tackle

Jack Singley

2–3 minutes

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Mark Schroller, of Mission Viejo, receives his third SEC offer.

Auburn under the reign of Gus Malzahn and Bryan Harsin struggled with acquiring and maintaining talent across the trenches, specifically the offensive line. Jake Thornton the new offensive line coach, under the direction of Hugh Freeze has made it a priority to get depth and talent to the Plains. 

Thornton and co. have just added another potential name to the offensive line board, as Mark Schroller, who holds offers from Vanderbilt and Arkansas received his third SEC offer from the Auburn Tigers on Sunday, April 16th. 

Schroller, a three-star from Mission Viejo, California has mostly been targeted by west coast teams but took a trip to Minnesota, so a potential visit to Auburn isn't out of the realm of possibility. 

The frame is there for Schroller, he stands at 6'6 and weighs around the 270 mark. He mostly was a right tackle for Mission Viejo, he excels at getting out of his stance quickly on run plays and helps push through on tighter runs. Schroller has incredible feet and stays within himself, rarely getting off balance. The key thing on film for Schroller is his tenacity and his willingness to play through the whistle, it seems at times that he has a personal vendetta against the opponent. 

Though Schroller is lower-rated and fans might not see this offer as an important one but he has the size, grit, and mindset to play at the next level. The main thing for Schroller would be the coaching up and Thornton, who offered him, would be the perfect man for the job.  

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This does not start until seven central.

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auburnwire.usatoday.com

 

Four-star 2025 wide receiver Josiah Abdullah offered by Auburn

Daniel Locke

1–2 minutes

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The Auburn Tigers have offered a scholarship to Josiah Abdullah, a wide receiver in the class of 2025, Abdullah announced via Twitter on Saturday.

The Atlanta, Georgia native attends Woodward Academy and holds offers from many top programs such as Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Florida State, Texas A&M, LSU, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, Ohio State, and Clemson.

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On3’s recruiting prediction machine is not high on Abdullah’s chances of committing to Auburn at this time. That could easily change as Hugh Freeze and company start to ramp up their recruiting efforts towards the receiver.

The prediction machine currently gives Tennessee a 53.2% chance and Alabama a 16.5% chance of landing Abdullah.

Abdullah is the No. 126 player as well as the No. 22 wide receiver in the class of 2025 according to On3. According to Rivals, he is a four-star wide receiver and the No. 9 prospect from the state of Georgia for the 2025 cycle. He has yet to receive a ranking from 247Sports.

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Auburn to see nation's top-ranked interior OL Casey Poe Monday

Cole Pinkston•04/16/23

Article written by:Cole Pinkston

Jake Thornton (Photo by Matt Rudolph/Auburn Live)

According to Auburn offensive line target Casey Poe of Lindale (Tex.), Tigers' OL coach Jake Thornton will be in to see him on Monday.

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flywareagle.com

 

Auburn football could pursue 2 transfer portal QBs: Analyst

Andrew Hughes

2–3 minutes

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The Auburn football head coaching staff could be looking to add not one, but two quarterbacks via the transfer portal — this, at least, according to Auburn Daily’s Lance Dawe in a report published on April 12.

“The Tigers are expected to look at several QB options in the transfer portal, possibly even picking up two signal-callers,” Dawe wrote. Paul Finebaum supported the idea that Auburn football would look to the transfer portal on the April 10 edition of his radio show.

“It didn’t change much, and the conclusions is still the same: I think Auburn needs a quarterback,” Finebaum said (h/t 247Sports). “I talked to Hugh Freeze on Friday before the game and you could tell he was saying the right things, but deep down, he knows quarterbacks and he knows he doesn’t have a quarterback on his roster that’s capable of getting Auburn out of the morass that it’s currently in and to the next level. So I think he’ll be pretty active in the portal.”

Auburn football reached out to Oregon State transfer portal QB

Dawe reported that the Tigers have reached out to Oregon State transfer portal entry, Chance Nolan, to add depth and competition to AU’s quarterback room.

“With the transfer portal opening up in four days, what do Hugh Freeze and Philip Montgomery choose to do in the portal? Well, they’re already doing some work,” Dawe wrote. “Chance Nolan, a quarterback transfer from Oregon State, has been contacted by Auburn, sources have confirmed to Auburn Daily.”

Oregon State added highly-touted Clemson transfer DJ Uiagalelei, who failed to match the gaurdy signal-caller standards set in Death Valley over the past decade, pushing Nolan to the end of the depth chart — and ultimately out of Corvallis.

Whether Nolan ultimately ends up on the Plains remains to be seen, but if he does, it’s possible he won’t be coming alone.