Aubserver Mailbag 174: When did AU start recruiting more nationally?

This week: Offensive and defensive line talk, stat goals, Jahki Howard, Disney World, Kendrick vs. Drake and concession stand innovations

Gene Chizik and Gus Malzahn (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

Welcome to a mailbag-heavy Friday here at The Observer. Not only do I have a fresh ‘bag filled with your Auburn football and basketball questions, but today’s premium podcast episode is all about revisiting past questions with Painter and Dan.

This week, you asked about Auburn football’s recruiting map, how the offensive and defensive lines might hold up this fall, stats to watch for the “proof of concept” we talked about last week, Jakhi Howard’s ceiling for his freshman season, and several more fun topics.

My question to everyone this week was inspired by friend of the newsletter Crow of “We Got Jared” fame: If you could add one thing to the food and drink offerings at Jordan-Hare Stadium or Neville Arena, what would it be?

Full disclosure: I don’t know much about the concession offerings at Jordan-Hare Stadium, because I’m away from all of that in the press box on Saturdays. However, I’m well-versed in Neville Arena’s grub — particularly one special stand — so I have a better idea of what could be added there.

Thanks as always for continuing to read and support The Observer. Happy summer. Let’s go.

Listening to you and Dan talk about Auburn's in-state recruiting focus made me wonder when did Auburn and college football in general get focused on broader geographic areas in recruitment.

My memory is that it started shifting at Auburn during the Bowden years. It feels like before then, players from states that didn't touch Alabama were outliers on the rosters. In your opinion, what lead to the shift in broader recruitment? 

The three I can think of are more games being on TV cause more brand awareness, because it was easier to get film on recruits because of digital video, email and faster internet — and, because of that, the growth of the recruiting services and chasing recruiting rankings? Was there something else going on I am missing? 

Gray Bearded Auburn Fan

There are a couple of ways I went about trying to find the answer for this question. First, I looked at the year-by-year recruiting classes for Auburn and counted up how many high school signees were from states that weren’t Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee or Mississippi — which are by far the biggest ones for the Tigers all-time.

What I found was that the beginning of the Tommy Tuberville era at Auburn had very few non-border state signees. Most years had just one or two, with zero coming in the 2003 class. After 2004, when the Tigers were obviously a bigger name nationally after their undefeated season and the BCS fiasco, you started to see a few more. But those stats were still outliers for the majority of his tenure.

Things changed starting in the 2009 class, when Gene Chizik arrived. He immediately signed five non-border state players in his first class, and he averaged more than that number for the entire duration of his time on the Plains.

You can see a noticeable jump for Auburn from that point on. Gus Malzahn averaged around four per year, although he had a couple of classes that famously came only from the main states — which skewed the average a good bit. Bryan Harsin had 11 in his two classes, although most of them didn’t stick around.

And, so far, Hugh Freeze has signed four in each of his first two classes. In a 2025 class that still has plenty of room to grow, he already has three committed: Broderick Shull (Oklahoma), Bryce Deas (Maryland) and Tai Buster (North Carolina).

The second way I tried to find the answer to this question came from Auburn’s media guides, which has a list of every letterman and their hometowns.

I first looked at Louisiana, which has 35 all-time lettermen. Of those 35, only 13 played before 2000 — and 14 of them came to the Plains in 2009 or later. The rate of picking up players from Louisiana rose under Tuberville some, but it really got going under Chizik and Malzahn.

Then I jumped over to Texas, which has 20 all-time lettermen. Of those 20, only five of them played before 2000, with just two more arriving before 2009. That means that more than half of the Tigers from Texas have gotten here since the Chizik Era started.

Arkansas was similar: Only two before 2000, then eight in the 2010s. Interestingly enough, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia have been states that have sporadically produced Auburn players over several decades. You can find Tigers from the mid-Atlantic dating back to the pre-war era, and there has never been a major run of getting players from there. It’s one or two every now and then, more or less.

So, while Gray Bearded Auburn Fan’s reasoning behind it potentially increasing during the Terry Bowden era makes plenty of sense — especially the rise of televised games and the spread of the Internet — things really didn’t get going for the Tigers outside of their main home area until around 2010.

Why is that? I think we need to go back and look at Chizik and his top assistants at Auburn. Chizik was at Texas and Iowa State before coming to Auburn, which naturally lended itself to more connections in that part of the country. Malzahn was an Arkansas legend who was coming from Oklahoma. Trooper Taylor was a Texas guy who was coming off a stint at Oklahoma State and had spent several years at Tulane. Curtis Luper had a similar background to Taylor. Defensive assistants Tracy Rocker and Tommy Thigpen had plenty of national experience on their resumes.

Auburn widened its recruiting scope under Chizik, who had a staff filled with assistants that had connections outside of the Tigers’ normal footprint. Also, this surge also came at a time when the SEC was winning the national championship every single season — making the conference even more appealing to players who might not have been in Auburn’s backyard. Throw that into the mix with the highly profitable SEC Network launch in the mid-2010s, and you’ve got a national brand.

Of course, Auburn could build a championship-caliber roster with most of its players coming from the usual states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee. The talent is definitely there. But, as rivals Georgia and Alabama have shown in the past decade, there’s plenty of value in being able to pick out high-level recruits that you may want further West or further North.

The post-Tuberville shift in recruiting has continued through several coaches now. While the Tigers won’t overly rely on non-pipeline states, to borrow a term from the old NCAA Football video game series, they’ve proven they can win battles there.

LT Percy Lewis (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

The keys to success in the SEC is at the line of scrimmage. Those lines have been rebuilt through the transfer portal. Before they play a down together… how do you see those lines stacking up against the SEC and other power-conference schools?

Many outlets have featured Percy Lewis as the key to OL success in 2024. Have you scouted much of his Miss St. film? If so, give us your thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of this massive human.

Concessions: Can we get a Jordan-Hare version of the Pitcher’s Mound at Truist Park?

Jim

My plan is to end the State of the Position series with the offensive and defensive lines in a couple of weeks, but we can definitely jump into those groups right now.