Mailbag 213: How deep is Auburn's 2025 offensive line?

This week: Durell Robinson, recruiting, win totals, Nike, a what-if basketball starting five, CFB26 and your favorite foods to cook

(Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

AUBURN — Welcome back to mailbag. This will be the last email you’ll get from us for several days, as I’m heading on vacation for an extended weekend — after getting the honor of speaking at the Greater Athens Auburn Club annual meeting on Thursday night, that is.

They told me that I am going to do a Q&A as part of my time speaking at the meeting. I would be nervous about that, but I’ve been in the business of answering almost any question related to Auburn sports that people have asked me, nearly every single week, for nearly a decade now.

That makes me feel old. It also makes me feel grateful for y’all.

This week, you asked several pressing questions about Auburn football heading into a make-or-break 2025 season — including the status of two position groups on offense and the general state of things regarding Hugh Freeze and his staff. We’ve also got a bunch of questions about the upcoming CFB26 video game, along with a fun (?) hypothetical basketball starting five and the enduring nature of smack talk.

My question to you this week: What’s your favorite food to prepare? My answer, right now, is a recipe for Korean beef bulgogi. My favorite way to serve it? Over tots. You can’t beat it.

Let’s dig into what y’all said.

Is the OL deep enough to sustain an injury to a starter?

Jeremy

It should be. The key word there is should.

Auburn’s offensive line is in the best shape, on paper, that it’s been heading into the season in quite some time. Both Pro Football Focus and Athlon put the Tigers in their top 10 offensive lines nationally for their respective season previews. That’s a testament to what Auburn is bringing back up front and what it added in the portal.

Heading into last season, Auburn had two projected first-teamers along the offensive line that had spent a full campaign as a starter at the FBS level: Dillon Wade and Izavion “Too Tall” Miller. Connor Lew played the second half of the 2023 season as the starting center and was locked in there. Jeremiah Wright hadn’t started regularly but had experience at right guard. Meanwhile, the plan was for Mississippi State transfer Percy Lewis to start at left tackle, pushing Wade inside to left guard.

That didn’t work out. Lewis barely played in the second half of the season, with Auburn moving Wade back out to left tackle and plugging Bradyn Joiner in at guard. Lewis, Joiner and Miller ended up being Auburn’s three lowest-rated offensive linemen among the most-used starters, per PFF.

Auburn quickly went to work in the portal, adding left tackle Xavier Chaplin from Virginia Tech and right tackle Mason Murphy from USC. Both were multi-year starters at their previous stops and were highly rated — Chaplin ranked as the No. 2 offensive tackle transfer in this class, Murphy at No. 15. Defending national champion Ohio State was the only other team to sign multiple top-15 transfers at this spot.

Chaplin’s arrival could, again, kick Wade back inside to his more comfortable position of left guard. Lew and Wright both have full seasons of solid work as starters under their belts, too. (Lewis and Joiner both transferred out this offseason.) Because of that, all five of the Tigers’ projected starters have been established, power-conference mainstays. That’s quite the jump from recent years.

But Jeremy’s question is about depth, and it’s a good one. Right off the bat, I would say Auburn is better equipped to withstand an injury than in years past because Miller — who has started the better part of multiple seasons at Auburn — is still on the team. Consistency has eluded Miller at times in his career, yet he was an SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week late last season and is capable of great games. When your “sixth man” has that kind of resume, you’re in a good spot as an offensive line.

Auburn also got some quality in-game reps last season to Tyler Johnson (92 snaps in four games) and DeAndre Carter (45 snaps in three games). While neither were in a position to grab and keep a starting job, they have at least been through the fire some at this level. Johnson gives you a second tackle with experience, and Carter is one of the highest-rated guards the Tigers have landed in a long time. Elsewhere, Dylan Senda, Seth Wilfred and Clay Wedin are reserves who have been around.

The best-case scenario is, of course, for Auburn to have that ultra-experienced starting five stay healthy and available all season long. But that’s not a realistic world. After all, Chaplin missed going through spring practices fully while recovering from a surgery. This position group is going to naturally have some health issues. That’s life.

Still, being able to pull an experienced player like Miller off the sidelines and shuffle with versatile pieces like Wade and Murphy — who has also played guard — is a pretty favorable spot to be in if you’re Auburn. If guys like Johnson and Carter look like they’re ready for more responsibility this fall, even better. Auburn’s offensive line hasn’t been a dominant unit under Freeze, yet it’s improved its talent level year over year while establishing considerable amounts of depth.

There are no guarantees up front, because we’ve seen the best-laid plans take big hits here in recent years. However, I believe Auburn is in a great spot to handle whatever comes its way on the offensive line in terms of personnel. The Tigers just need to go out and make all this experience and talent count on the field in the fall.

(Durell Robinson/Instagram)

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