7.1.23 Footbball Articles

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auburnwire.usatoday.com

 

Auburn Tigers Snapshot Profile: No. 10 Caleb Burton

JD McCarthy

2–3 minutes

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Going into the 2023 football season, Auburn Wire will be looking at each scholarship player listed on the Tigers’ roster.

Over the preseason, each profile will cover where the player is from, how recruiting websites rated them coming out of high school, and what role they will play for Hugh Freeze in his first season on the Plains.

Buy Tigers Tickets

Up next is transfer wide receiver Caleb Burton. The talented wide receiver spent one season at Ohio State before entering the portal and is one of Auburn’s most intriguing pickups.

Preseason Player Profile

Hometown: Austin, Texas

Height: 5-11

Weight: 171

Previous School: Ohio State

Class in 2023: Redshirt Freshman

247Sports Composite Ranking

Four-Star / No. 22 in Texas / No. 21 WR

Depth Chart Overview

Unlike most of Auburn’s transfer additions, Burton is just starting his college career and is far from a finished product. The former top 150 recruit didn’t see the field last season partially due to an injury but spent time at Ohio State, the school that is the best in the country at producing elite wide receivers.

He fits best in the slot and will likely back up Ja'Varrius Johnson as he gets valuable experience and learns the offense. Burton’s role may be limited in the 2023 season, but he has the talent to carve out plenty of playing time and will be a key member of the wide receiver room moving forward.

 Caleb Burton’s Photo Gallery

Syndication: The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio State Buckeyes wide receiver Caleb Burton (12) braces for impact with cornerback Cameron Kittle (38)…

Ohio State Buckeyes wide receiver Caleb Burton (12) braces for impact with cornerback Cameron Kittle (38) during the spring football game at Ohio Stadium in Columbus on April 16, 2022. Ncaa Football Ohio State Spring Game

Syndication: The Columbus Dispatch

Aug 4, 2022; Columbus, OH, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes wide receiver Caleb Burton (12) catches a…

Aug 4, 2022; Columbus, OH, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes wide receiver Caleb Burton (12) catches a pass during the first fall football practice at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Mandatory Credit: Adam Cairns-The Columbus Dispatch Ohio State Football First Practice

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saturdaydownsouth.com

 

Auburn breaks all-time season ticket record ahead of 2023 season

Spenser Davis

~3 minutes

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Auburn announced it has broken its all-time record for season tickets sold for the 2023 campaign.

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Hugh Freeze’s arrival has already had a major impact on ticket sales, as the Tigers now have fewer than 300 season tickets remaining for this coming season.

Here’s the announcement from Auburn:

Auburn’s 2023 home schedule includes matchups against Georgia, Ole Miss and Alabama. Auburn will also face UMass, Samford, New Mexico State and Mississippi State at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

The Ole Miss game, scheduled for Oct. 21, will pit Freeze against his former program in a pivotal SEC West showdown.

Auburn will be looking to take a big step forward in 2023 during Freeze’s first year in charge. The Tigers went 5-7 last season and fired head coach Bryan Harsin before the end of the year.

Prior to last season, Auburn had reached bowl eligibility in 9 consecutive campaigns.

The Tigers will open the year against UMass on Sept. 2 at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

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al.com

 

Auburn WR commit Bryce Cain’s young career on fast track

Published: Jun. 30, 2023, 8:00 a.m.

3–4 minutes

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1. Sports

A relative newcomer to football, Auburn WR commit Bryce Cain’s career is on a fast track

Baker wide receiver Bryce Cain takes a water break during a 7-on-7 event at the Sports Tourism Complex on Thursday, June 29, 2023, in Foley, Ala. (Mike Kittrell | preps@al.com)

The college offers came quick for Auburn wide receiver commit Bryce Cain.

The speedy senior from Baker High in Mobile did not play football – at all – until last spring. Not in little league. Not at the junior varsity level. Not at all.

And now?

“I have 24-plus offers in a year,” he said this week at the Foley 7-on-7 event. “I can’t believe it really. All glory to God.”

Cain (5-foot-11, 170) committed to Auburn on June 13. His other offers included Ole Miss, Air Force, Cincinnati, Jacksonville State, Liberty, Louisville, Memphis, Northwestern, Troy, Tulane and Wake Forest.

He said he is completely sold on the Tigers.

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“I love it,” he said. “It feels like home. I feel like I have an opportunity to play early, and I think the coaching staff can get me to the next level. I’m already loving it.”

Cain said the Auburn staff has penciled him in as a speedy slot receiver. He said first-year Tiger head coach Hugh Freeze was an “awesome, awesome coach. He has the best personality of any of the coaches I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”

Cain caught 26 passes for 497 yards and 5 TDs a year ago in his first year of football.

“He’s really good,” Baker quarterback and Mississippi State commit Josh Flowers said. “He just started playing last year so he’s improving every day. The ceiling is really high for him.”

Cain himself admits his football ceiling didn’t start out too high. A baseball player most of his life, he finally was talked into trying football last spring.

“The first practice, the ball is hitting me in the head,” he joked. “I couldn’t catch for anything. As time progressed, that got better, and I’ve been catching everything since.”

Baker head coach Steve Normand said Cain runs a legit 4.3 or 4.4, which continues to turn the heads of college coaches.

“Last year was the first year he played football for us,” Normand said earlier this month. “That’s good and bad. Some say it’s good because he hasn’t formed any bad habits just yet. It’s funny thinking back. I told our guys last summer that he could fly but that he was catching the ball with his face. But he’s worked his tail off this year to get better and better. He’s a sponge. He wants to learn.”

Cain is currently listed at No. 27 among in-state senior recruits in Alabama, according to the 247 composite rankings. He is one of five of the top 30 players committed to Freeze’s Tigers, joining Booker T. Washington LB Joseph Phillips (No. 8), Andalusia RB J’Marion Burnette (No. 14), Moody DB A’mon Lane (No. 16) and Anniston DB Jayden Lewis (No. 18).

“I’m done (with recruiting),” Cain said. “I’m 100 percent locked in. I feel like there is so much stress off me now. I can just go out and compete my senior year.”

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2 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

 

247sports.com

 

Most Valuable Tigers No 17

Nathan King

9–11 minutes

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Much has changed over the past 15 years in the landscape of sports media, but Auburn Undercover has remained a reliable source of coverage for a generation of Tigers fans.

This July, Auburn Undercover is celebrating 15 years since its inception. To celebrate, our readers can get 75 percent off an annual subscription to the site for the next 15 days.

*** 15-YEAR SPECIAL: 75% OFF AN AUBURN UNDERCOVER SUB ***

Originally an ESPN affiliate when founded in July 2008, the site has operated as part of the 247Sports network since 2010. Since its creation, spearheaded by publisher Ronnie Sanders, Auburn Undercover has garnered recognition as a premier outlet not only in the SEC footprint, but across the sport.  

“One day, I was talking to an Auburn coach, and they asked me, ‘How does Auburn Undercover know everything that’s going on before we sometimes do?’” former Auburn Undercover reporter and current 247Sports national college football reporter Brandon Marcello said. “That was the ultimate compliment, and it really encapsulates what Auburn Undercover was and has always been.”

Dan Rubin, then the director of development and operations for TEAM Network — “a precursor to 247Sports, in a lot of ways” — worked as a liaison for site acquisition for ESPN, which at the time aimed to bolster its college sports coverage with team sites. Many were converted from the Rivals or Scout networks. In Auburn’s case, one of only five from-scratch sites was launched.  

“In order for the sites to survive, we had to create a network and a platform for the independent sites,” Rubin said. “ESPN wanted to get into the mix, and Auburn Undercover certainly hit the ground running.”

Sanders — an Auburn alumnus who previously worked in recruiting and special teams at Auburn, LSU, Florida and Southern Miss — had designs on commandeering sites on the new network, particularly in the southeast. He was eventually awarded rights to six sites including Auburn Undercover, and three of which ended up moving over to 247 Sports. 

But he needed investors. Sanders had coached John Sablich, a kicker at Southern Miss whose father, Jamie Sablich, was a business owner on the Gulf Coast.

Jamie Sablich was on board, and things began to get rolling. Sanders approached an old friend, Paul Finebaum, and asked for recommendations for a key role on his new site.

“‘Paul told me to give you the biggest job I have,’” Sanders told Scott Brown, then a sports producer at AL.com, over the phone.

Brown became managing editor of the websites, but there was still a key ingredient needed before Auburn Undercover could enter the reporting sphere.

“You’ve got to have eyeballs,” Brown said. “In 2008, you’re in the infancy of message boards being mainstream and respected like they are today.”

Brown was tasked with searching for a lead reporter to kick off the site’s Auburn coverage. He remembers saying in a conversation with Sablich and Sanders, “We need to get a name people know and trust.”

And Brown remembers the subject of his first email to Phillip Marshall: “An overture to join ESPN.”

Setting the tone for Auburn Undercover’s success was the hiring of Marshall, a veteran reporter who had spent the previous 17 years at the Huntsville Times.

“For Auburn Undercover to add someone like Phillip, who was the voice of Auburn football and Auburn in general, that added immediate credibility,” Rubin said.

But it was a considerable change in scenery for Marshall, a respected newspaper reporter throughout his career, to pivot to an internet, message board-based venture.

“At the end of the day, we were a scrappy startup,” Brown said. “It was a leap.”

They met at one of Sablich’s restaurants — Burger Burger in Biloxi, Mississippi — and Marshall agreed to come on board. Fifteen years later, he remains the anchor for Auburn Undercover’s coverage of the Tigers’ football program.

“Naturally, Auburn Undercover exceeded expectations and interest because of (Phillip’s) followers, as compared to the other sites,” Sablich said.

Entering the space of what were referred to as “team sites” at the time was admittedly an undertaking for Marshall. But his professionalism and experience were exactly what the site needed to take off.

“I told them when I took the job, ‘My intention is to do this job the same way I’ve always done,’” Marshall said.

Pillars of support were in place to ensure Auburn Undercover could grow in its early years. Keeping a flowing message board community was paramount, Sanders said. He and Sablich went to meet Finebaum in Birmingham to ask him to share Auburn Undercover and the other sites on air.

“It seemed like a gamble to go in that direction, but it wasn’t really because (Sanders) and that crew were so committed,” Finebaum said. “I have some regrets I didn’t go in there with him and getting in on the ground floor of what’s one of the hottest industries in the medium.”

Before Auburn home games during the 2008 season, Sablich remembers wandering campus, placing Auburn Undercover flyers in bathrooms, on street poles, under windshield wipers, etc.

“I was just trying to be a team player,” Sablich laughed. “We knew we could get some publicity on a national level because it was ESPN. But on a local level, it was Phillip. Phillip was the key. He was a proven item in that market.”

Added Finebaum: “Getting Phillip was significant in those early years. Phillip was one of the biggest names in — forget Birmingham, in Alabama sportswriting history. His father was, frankly, a legend, and so is he.”

It didn’t take long for Auburn Undercover to gain traction and attention for its reporting during a season of change for Auburn football. Five months after the site went live, Tommy Tuberville resigned as head coach. Marshall said AUC’s market-leading coverage of the hiring of Iowa State’s Gene Chizik helped growth tremendously while the site was still in its infancy.

Two years later, Auburn Undercover reported accurately and tactfully on the precarious Cam Newton scandal — then, of course, Auburn won the national title.

Ten months prior, Sanders reached a deal with Shannon Terry, after Terry founded 247Sports in 2010, to move Auburn Undercover over to its new home network. 

“We wouldn’t have been nearly as successful without Shannon, Sanders said. Joining a fledging network on the front end with someone like him was really pivotal. He changed the way I looked at the business and the way I approached running the site.” 

Auburn Undercover was at the forefront of news on several other pertinent events around that time of Auburn football history, including the firing of Tommy Tuberville, the hiring and firing of Gene Chizik, the hiring of Gus Malzahn and the miraculous 2013 season.

“I think we established that, if you’re looking for information on Auburn athletics — particularly football and men’s basketball — that Auburn Undercover is the place to go,” Marshall said. “And we’ve continued to establish that.”

Marshall, a two-time Alabama Sportswriter of the Year recipient, was named last year as one of 50 “legends” of the Alabama Sports Writers Association.

“When you’ve got Phillip leading the charge and being able to provide insight and information that no one else can provide, it’s really made it the cornerstone for insider knowledge on what’s actually happening with Auburn athletics,” Marcello said. “It all starts with Phillip. His experience and connections open even more doors for our reporting and for us to provide even more information.”

As the sports media landscape has changed, Auburn Undercover has remained atop the market with unique content, persistent reporting and a teeming message-board community.

Marcello, who took home first-place honors for Alabama Sportswriter of the Year four times while at Auburn Undercover, added to the site’s multimedia prowess, as well. He grew the Auburn Undercover Podcast into the largest on the beat, and won an Associated Press Sports Editors award for a video series on Auburn’s coaches and athletic director in 2018.

“Auburn fans are always hungry for information; it doesn’t matter the medium,” Marcello said. “The Auburn Undercover Podcast came at a great time in the landscape for fans and media. People were looking for more ways to get their information.”

Voted one of the top 10 sports websites nationally by APSE in 2019, Auburn Undercover continues to strive for excellence in all facets. Still led by Sanders’ and Marshall’s expertise, the staff now features a blend of savvy veterans and young reporters looking to make names for themselves in the industry.

“Phillip made everything go from day one,” Sanders said. "His professionalism and work ethic out of the gate set the tone for everything that was to come. There have been a lot of important contributors along the way — Keith (Niebuhr) and Brandon in particular — but it all started with Phillip.”

The industry will continue to evolve in ways unforeseen. And Auburn Undercover will aim for the same success over the next 15 years.

“To have had an idea almost 16 years ago now, and see it come to fruition has been an incredibly rewarding experience, Sanders said. “I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished.” 

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3 minutes ago, toddc said:

Article doesn’t match title 

thanx.i have no idea.some do not want you copying and pasting. it will be ok. hopefully.

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11 minutes ago, toddc said:

Article doesn’t match title 

i deleted it.

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23 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

i deleted it.

It happens to me sometimes when I change it to “reader view “ on the article .

Edited July 1, 2023 by toddc