Ready or not, here comes a new era for Auburn football at corner
Even in the losing seasons, cornerback has been a spot of stability for the Tigers. But now it's arguably the biggest question mark on the team.
AUBURN — With nearly four dozen outgoing players and around 60 new additions, so much has changed for Auburn football between the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
Like with any team undergoing such a drastic makeover — and one that could use it, considering its skid of five straight losing seasons — there’s so much unknown on the roster with a little more than two months and change to go until the first kickoff.
Still, pretty much every position group for the Tigers can be viewed through some sort of optimistic lens. The offense has an established star quarterback in this scheme, more depth at several spots and more familiarity with veteran transfers to ease the transition. The defense retained a large chunk of its young talent at all three levels and plugged in instant-impact transfers to help keep the ball rolling.
Cornerback, though, is the one spot that arguably got hit the hardest this offseason. And the Tigers weren’t shying away from that fact in spring practices earlier this year.
“We had a lot of people leave Auburn from the corner position,” sophomore Blake Woodby said during spring ball. “Last year, we had four All-Americans in one room. That’s kind of hard to replicate.”
“Four All-Americans” might be a stretch, but it’s not hard to see where Woodby is coming from there. Jay Crawford was a freshman All-American in 2024, and now he’s at Ole Miss. Kayin Lee, the No. 1 corner, was a former high school All-American and has now transferred to Tennessee. While Raion Strader didn’t play much at Auburn, he was another former freshman All-American during his time at Miami-Ohio.
And then there’s Rayshawn Pleasant, who has been an All-American for his work as a kick returner but holds down a primary home at cornerback. Pleasant stayed put.
“I felt like I owed it to these boys to come back,” Pleasant said in the spring. “I owed it to these fans. It’s been a long drought, and they’ve been supportive of us. … I feel like I owed it to the fanbase and the coaching staff.
“I was a big fan of Coach (Alex) Golesh, me being a G5 guy. I feel like it was only right for me to give them a chance to get my best and stay there for them.”
Auburn will be glad he stayed. According to Pro Football Focus, he played 187 snaps in coverage last season for the Tigers. The next-closest returner on the team is Woodby, who had 56 across six games as a true freshman.
Lee and Crawford each accounted for 330 or more snaps in coverage last season. Strader had 94 more. Additionally, the Tigers lost former 4-star cornerback Donovan Starr — who didn’t play but a handful of snaps last year — in a transfer to Clemson.
The end result is a position group that is lighter on experience and is heavier on questions. Auburn’s cornerbacks know what the perception of them will be heading into the season, and they’ll have to work hard to prove the doubters wrong.
“We’re all hungry,” Pleasant said.