State of the Position 2024: Offensive Line
In a few ways, Auburn's OL showed progress in 2023. It's got a chance to showcase even more of it both on and off the field in 2024.
This is Part 9 of a 10-part Auburn football 2024 season preview series that we’re calling “State of the Position.” It’s a breakdown of the past, present and future of each group on the Tigers’ roster as they look to end their streak of losing seasons and take a significant step forward this fall.
Even though I’m out of the country this week, we’ll still wrap up this series with our deep dives on the offensive and defensive lines.
STATE OF THE POSITION: QB • WR • LB • EDGE • RB • TE • CB • S
(Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)
The Past
A critical component to the end of the Gus Malzahn era at Auburn was the program’s rough stretch of recruiting and developing players along the offensive line.
The first several years of his tenure were marked by great-to-excellent play up front, with the likes of Greg Robinson, Reese Dismukes, Alex Kozan and Braden Smith starring. But Auburn hasn’t had a first-team All-SEC selection since Smith in 2017 — which just so happens to be the last time the Tigers won double-digit games or played for a conference championship.
In the two recruiting cycles under Bryan Harsin, Auburn signed a grand total of three offensive linemen out of high school. Only one is still on the team. The other two transferred well before making any sort of impact on the field.
To put it simply, a bad problem got even worse before Hugh Freeze and his staff arrived at Auburn. In the 2023 class, they worked quickly to flip Georgia high school standout Connor Lew and grab Izavion Miller out of the JUCO ranks while holding onto 3-star commits Clay Wedin and Bradyn Joiner. Yet the Tigers still had to rebuild their offensive line for the upcoming season in a hurry.
Auburn worked the transfer portal for offensive linemen harder than any other team in the country, landing Dillon Wade and Jaden Muskrat from Tulsa, Avery Jones from East Carolina and Gunner Britton from Western Kentucky. Returning pieces Kameron Stutts and Jeremiah Wright would have to play bigger roles, too.
That makeshift Year 1 offensive line under Jake Thornton did somewhat better than expected in the grand scheme of things.
Auburn jumped all the way up to No. 3 in the SEC in rushing yards before contact per carry after years of being stuck in the bottom half of the conference there. The Tigers improved their allowed pressure rate, sack rate and tackle for loss rate from the 2022 season — although they still had several games with notably rough results there. It was a mixed bag for a middle-of-the-road line, which made sense, given the situation.
Jones suffered an injury toward the middle of the season and was replaced at center by Lew, who played well and earned some Freshman All-American honors at a difficult position. Wade and Britton turned out to be solid blockers in the SEC. Stutts had the best year of his long career. Wright and Miller showed promise, even though inconsistency kept them from being heavy-use starters.
With the amount of struggles that Auburn had on offense — including a tendency for pressures to turn into sacks much more often than its peers — it’s tough to call 2023 a good season for the offensive line.
But, in some ways, it was better. And that’s created a brighter outlook for a position group that has not been in the best of light for the Tigers since that 2017 SEC West title run.
Britton, Jones and Stutts all saw their eligibilities come to an end. But Wade, Miller, Lew and Wright — four of the top seven offensive linemen in terms of snap count from 2023 — were all coming back. And Muskrat, who is also back, played several different positions for the Tigers off the bench.
On top of that, Auburn’s offensive line didn’t suffer the outgoing departures through the transfer portal that almost every other position group has had. At a spot where retention and development is arguably more critical than anywhere else on the roster, the Tigers are starting to build more depth and consistency up front.
There’s still a ways to go before Auburn can say it’s back at the heyday of the punishing offensive lines from Malzahn’s best years and several of the most notable teams before that. However, it’s a start.
(Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)
The Present
With three of the top five offensive linemen in snaps played returning for the 2024 season, there’s already a decent-sized foundation for Thornton and the rest of the Tigers’ staff here.