Auburn football just had a Big Cat Weekend to remember
The Tigers got their 2025 class going again with several commits and moved to No. 1 for 2026 with a trio of pickups. There could be more soon.
Before we get to today’s newsletter on a rather large Big Cat Weekend for Auburn football, here’s some important housekeeping:
The Auburn Observer has a new look. Designed by Graham Ferguson — Justin’s youngest brother — the Observer is going with a new logo and wordmark as it enters its fifth (!) football season. For those of you getting this via email, you can check out the rebrand in the banner at the top of the page. For everybody else, click around on the website for the changes.
Koozies are back. A huge reason why we went with the new look is because it’s better for merch purposes. And we’re kicking that off with another run of our most requested item: Can koozies. (You might call them huggers or coolies or something of that nature.) Gear up for tailgating season with our koozies, which will once again cost $5 each, and that includes shipping. You can get up to four in an order. The koozies will have our new navy logo on one side and are available in bright orange or baby blue. Click the links to see the design mockups. We’ll take orders starting today through Sunday, August 4. Hit the button below to order.
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Now, let’s look back at a pretty Big weekend on the Plains.
2025 DB Blake Woodby and HC Hugh Freeze (Instagram)
Two weeks ago, at SEC Media Days in Dallas, Hugh Freeze joked that he had to get onto Will Redmond — Auburn’s first-year General Manager of Player Personnel.
“Well, I'm mad at him right now, because we've had a little lull in recruiting,” Freeze said with a laugh. “I'm playing. But I did send him a text and said, ‘What's the deal, man? Let's pick this up.’“
Auburn started the summer on a tear in recruiting for the 2025 class, landing commitments from several highly touted prospects and climbing all the way into the top five nationally in the team rankings.
However, after the successful flip of 4-star in-state running back Alvin Henderson from Penn State, the Tigers cooled off. They had multiple de-commitments and missed out on landing some of the more high-profile players on their board. Auburn even slipped out of the top 10 in the 247Sports Composite for the Class of 2025.
“We had really good momentum, then as recruiting does, you have a little lull, it seems,” Freeze said in Dallas. “… I expect it to pick back up with Big Cat. We're never out of the fight on the guys we want, I don't believe that.
“We're not going to win every battle, but we're on the right ones. And I do think, Big Cat, hopefully we persuade a few more to come with us next weekend.”
“Big Cat,” of course, is Big Cat Weekend — an event that has been foundational to Auburn football’s entire recruiting operation since it debuted during the days of Gene Chizik.
The idea is simple: Close the month of July with a massive amount of on-campus visitors for a single day and head into fall camp on a recruiting high. In Freeze’s first Big Cat Weekend last year, Auburn flipped Perry Thompson from Alabama and also landed in-state athlete Malcolm Simmons.
The usual time slot for Big Cat Weekend is about to be obsolete. Starting next year, all of July and August will be a “dead period” on the NCAA recruiting calendar, meaning that prospects can’t make visits and coaches can’t go out on the road. Big Cat Weekend will likely continue, just at another time on the calendar.
So, if this past weekend was indeed the last time Auburn would be able to close the summer with a massive Big Cat, the long-running tradition went out with a bang.
Auburn left Saturday with five commitments: two for the upcoming 2025 class — and three for a 2026 class that is now ranked No. 1 nationally. Longtime Auburn recruiting experts Jeffrey Lee (On3) and Jason Caldwell (247) said on Twitter that they had never covered a Big Cat quite like that. (The Tigers then picked up a sixth commitment on Sunday.)
When it comes to the 2025 class, the Tigers are still just outside the top 10, sitting at No. 11 in the Composite. But that could change soon, as one blue-chip target is set to announce his commitment Monday and another is scheduled for later this week. Both were at Big Cat Weekend, and it looks like Auburn is well-positioned to land the duo.
Since it was such a massive weekend for Auburn recruiting — and talent acquisition is a major part to any college football program’s chances at competing for titles — let’s take a closer look at all the commitments the Tigers landed and several other targets to watch in the weeks ahead.
Nothing is official in recruiting until the letters are signed all the way in December. But if Freeze and his staff are able to capitalize on what happened during Big Cat Weekend and turn it into a successful fall, Auburn should get closer to where it needs to be as a true SEC contender again.