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si.com

Auburn Tigers LB Eugene Asante Follows in Footsteps of Brother

Auburn Daily Staff

4–5 minutes

After enjoying a breakout campaign in 2023, Auburn Tigers  linebacker Eugene Asante has set some pretty lofty personal and team goals for his upcoming senior campaign.

If leading the Tigers with 86 tackles last season was impressive, then the five sacks and 8.5 tackles for loss he also added might even serve notice that Asante is in the running for the prodigious Butkus Award moving forward.

Individual awards always help raise the personal profile, especially with regard to the inevitable aspirations to turn professional, but Asante is determined to keep talking about team ambitions above all else.

"The goals and aspirations that I have within this game are the reason why I came back to Auburn, because I truly do believe we can have a special team," Asante told Riley Hubbard of auburntigers.com. "I want to play for an SEC Championship, and I feel like our fans deserve that. From top to bottom, people do truly care about our team and our success.

"I feel like it's only right for me to go 110 percent because they deserve something. Personally, I believe that if you play in an SEC Championship , you're playing for something special. But ultimately, I just want to be somebody that fans say, 'Eugene left it all on the field.' That's what I really want to be remembered for here."

Climbing the mountain back into conference title contention has been a process which was never going to happen overnight. Laying down incremental building blocks is essential, so the tangible shoots of recovery certainly were self-evident in the manner by which Asante started to mature into a well rounded college athlete.

Above all else, Asante wanted to prove to head coach Hugh Freeze that he could be a player he could always rely upon to give his all, and that he would be fully prepared to do his job.

"To be honest, I was extremely hungry to show Coach Freeze and his staff what I could do," Asante said about the start of his Auburn journey. " I was on the scout team my first season and it was a hard thing for me because I was an underclassman on the scout team. Last year was kind of personal for me.

"First and foremost, I wanted Coach Freeze to know I cared about football. And how I let him know I cared about it was by my preparation, by knowing what I needed to do defensively and by busting my tail while I was out there. It really attested to everything I went through in 2022, just trying to prove to the coaches that I could."  

Now that he's returning for his senior year, Asante will be trying to be that savvy veteran leader everyone looks up to for inspiration and positive guidance.

It's a task Asante is warming to, but that shouldn't really come as that much of a surprise. After all, his older brother,  Larry, was a standout defender for the Nebraska Cornhuskers before playing for a total of four NFL teams as a professional.

"I grew up with those memories of watching him play at Nebraska," Asante recalled. "I didn't miss a game. I didn't miss any moment because it was such a surreal thing to see your brother get to college and play at that level. So as a young kid, I remember saying, 'Man, I'm going to be there one day too.'"

Auburn is now reaping the benefits of having a player in their ranks who was always deeply immersed in the lifestyle it takes to succeed in a big college environment.

Indeed,  the backstory of how his brother went all the way from Ghana in West Africa, to the NFL is extremely inspiring and uplifting for Asante, and he's thankful for having it.

"I saw his hard work all throughout the house growing up, even in high school," Asante explained to Leonard. "He spent a lot of time outside the house, working out and putting in that dedication of perfecting his craft. It's so impressive to me that my brother was able to make it to the National Football League because he wasn't born in this country. So just being able to develop that within such a short period of time and then get drafted is something I really do admire, and I tell him all the time."

In so many ways, it sure sounds like little brother learned from the example set by his older brother and is following in his footsteps.

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athlonsports.com

Auburn Extends Offer to Elite 2025 WR

Michael Brauner

~3 minutes

Home

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Hugh Freeze is going after his next stud receiver.

In this story:

Auburn Tigers

The Auburn Tigers have extended an offer to 2025 5-star wide receiver out of Draper, Utah in Jerome Myles.

Myles was previously committed to Ole Miss, but backed off that decision earlier this week. He holds offers from Michigan, Texas A&M, and Arkansas among many others.

Standing at 6 foot 2 and weighing just over 200 pounds, Myles is ranked by 247 as the No. 5 wide receiver in the nation, the No. 31 overall player, and the No. 1 prospect in the state of Utah for his class. 

247's Blair Angulo spoke about Myles this week after his decommitment, saying that the race is far from over after he was fresh off an official visit to Texas A&M and Utah.

"I think this is a prospect that wants to take his time, he told me he wants to decide closer to the early signing period, go through everything. He has an official visit to Michigan at the end of July, Tennessee has been pushing for a visit as well...Jerome Myles is back on the market," Angulo said.

Here was Myles' official scouting report from 247's Greg Biggins:

Myles is one of the top receivers in the country and has a ton of upside. He has a rare combination of size, speed and body control and reminds us a bit of former Washington All-American wide out and recent No. 9 pick of the Chicago Bears, Rome Odunze. He has an athletic 6-2, 210 pound frame and is a true deep threat who can get behind any defense. He has a track background with personal bests this Spring of 10.57-100m and 21.30-200m. He’s not just track fast, his speed carries over to the football field and he can routinely blow past opposing corners who are giving him huge cushions. He adjusts well to the football over either shoulder, shows the ability to change gears and knows how to set up an opposing corner. He has a large catch radius and shows the ability to make contested catches over a corner or catch a ball down by his ankles. He has strong hands, isn’t afraid to go over the middle and catches the ball well through contact. He’s a tough kid who battled through an early season injury and missed much of his junior season but rallied in time for the playoffs and had a huge impact on Corner Canyon’s State Championship team. He’s a physical blocker as well and will knock a defender on his backside and it’s really tough to find a discernible weakness in his game. When you combine his physical gifts in terms of frame and high level athleticism, there aren’t many pass catchers with more long term potential than Myles.

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247sports.com

 

4star LB Tyler Lockhart decommits from Auburn

Nathan King

2–3 minutes

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Mississippi State seems to be the logical choice for Lockhart now

Make it two decommitments from Auburn's 2025 class this week.

Tyler Lockhart, a 4-star linebacker who committed to the Tigers in early April, shared on social media that he's backing off his pledge from Hugh Freeze's program. The Mississippi native is fresh off an official visit to Mississippi State, where his brother plays. Lockhart currently holds two 247Sports Crystal Balls to Mississippi State.

After taking an official visit to Auburn earlier this month, Lockhart said the Bulldogs were the only program still in contention.

"It's just Mississippi State," Lockhart said.

A top-150 overall player in the class and the No. 17 linebacker, Lockhart made a surprise commitment to Auburn when he made a late-night announcement back in May.

Earlier this week, 4-star offensive tackle Carde Smith also backed off his Auburn commitment.

Auburn's 2025 class is still ranked in the top 10, and will look to make some big splashes at Big Cat Weekend next month.

#PMARSHONAU: Good team? Great team? Struggling team? Hope and questions for Auburn football

Auburn football will be improved, but how much is a question yet to be answered

As of Monday, Oklahoma and Texas will be in the Southeastern Conference. The Atlantic Coast Conference will have two members from the Pacific coast. The Big Ten will have two members from California, one from Oregon and one from Washington.

Players are being paid by donors. Soon, they will be paid by the programs for which they play. They are permanent free agents, able to transfer to another school any time they please with no penalty. Who in the world knows what will be next?

But it's almost time to play football again. Preseason practices start in just more than a month. The first games will be played in two months. Maye the focus will turn to the games on the field and the young men who play them instead of anti-trust lawsuits.

To read this full article and more, subscribe now —

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al.com

4-star linebacker out of Mississippi re-opens recruitment, decommits from Auburn

Published: Jun. 28, 2024, 3:39 p.m.

~2 minutes

Auburn Football

4-star linebacker Tyler Lockhart backs off pledge to Auburn after recent visit to other SEC program

Tyler Lockhart, a 4-star linebacker out of Mississippi, has re-opened his recruitment and decommitted from Auburn.

“After a long talk with my family I have decided to open my recruitment and de-commit Auburn University,” Lockhart wrote in a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, on Friday afternoon.

Auburn initially earned the commitment of Lockhart on May 6.

Lockhart’s change in direction comes just days after he took an official visit to Mississippi State, which was the first program to offer the 4-star prospect in September of 2023.

Lockhart, who ranks as the No. 17 linebacker in the 2025 class and the No. 4 prospect in the state of Mississippi according to 247Sports, has hauled in 15 other offers since that first offer from Mississippi State including Auburn, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee and others.

With Lockhart backing off his pledge, the Tigers have lost a pair of 2025 commitments this week as 4-star offensive lineman Carde Smith decommitted on Wednesday.

Despite losing the pair, Auburn’s 2025 class still ranks inside the Top 10, according to 247Sports. The eighth-ranked class currently consists of 15 commits.

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Auburn target Herbert Scroggins commits to Miami

Tyler Raley

Sat, June 29, 2024 at 7:59 AM CDT·1 min read

Oct 26, 2019; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Miami Hurricanes helmets sit on the sidelines against the Pittsburgh Panthers during the fourth quarter at Heinz Field. Miami won 16-12. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Auburn football has been extremely busy over the summer portion of the offseason on the recruiting trail, and while the program has had success, it missed out on a big target on Friday.

Following a recent visit to the Plains, four-star EDGE [autotag]Herbert Scroggins[/autotag] announced his commitment to the Miami Hurricanes. He had previously been heavily favored to sign with the Tigers by both On3 and 247Sports up until last weekend, when he went back to Miami for another visit before his decision.

Scroggins made his visit to Auburn two weeks ago, one that was considered to be huge for the program in landing the prospect. The Hurricanes beat out fellow ACC foes in North Carolina and Georgia Tech as well.

According to the On3 industry ranking, the Savannah, Georgia, product is currently ranked the No. 376 overall player and the No. 34 EDGE in the 2025 class. He is also ranked No. 44 in the state of Georgia.

The Tigers are currently trying to bounce back in the recruiting game after multiple recruits recently decommitting and other schools making moves on mutual prospects.

They rank No. 10 nationally in this recruiting cycle and No. 6 in the SEC, with the hopes of raising that soon and early into the fall football season.

Contact/Follow us @TheAuburnWire on X (Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Auburn news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Tyler on Twitter @traley34

This article originally appeared on Auburn Wire: Auburn target Herbert Scroggins commits to Miami

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