State of the Position 2024: Wide Receiver
After reloading with more established transfers and an elite class of freshmen, no position looks more different than the wideouts.
This is Part 2 of an 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.
The goal is to run a pair of these each week. They’ll most likely be on Wednesday and Thursday mornings, but they could be moved around in case of any schedule conflicts. After starting with quarterbacks, let’s now move to the receivers.
STATE OF THE POSITION: QB
WR Cam Coleman (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)
The Past
Naturally, when a team finishes dead last in the conference in passing yards for two straight seasons, it’s going to be tough to find a lot of positives at wide receiver. While quarterback is the most important position on the field, an air attack is only as strong as the weapons it has at its disposal.
In 2022 and 2023, the SEC had 52 different 500-yard receivers. Auburn didn’t have a single one of them. The Tigers had at least one in 12 of the previous 13 years, and they had multiple in six of those seasons. (They had three in 2010, 2017 and 2018.)
Even though Auburn is historically a run-first program, it’s had a number of quarterbacks become bonafide stars in college and starting options in the NFL.
The same hasn’t happened nearly as much at wideout. The Tigers have just two 1,000-yard receivers in program history. (LSU had two last season.) They also have had only two wideouts reach 1,000 yards in a single NFL season. (LSU also had two last season.)
But Hugh Freeze also had two of his former players reach 1,000 yards in the NFL last season in A.J. Brown and DK Metcalf. Similar to his past successes at quarterback, Freeze was hired in hopes of boosting Auburn’s play at wide receiver — which absolutely has to be done if the Tigers want to contend in this era of football.
That impact didn’t happen in Year 1. Concerns about the wide receiver room started in spring practices, and they carried into the fall. Miscommunication and blown assignments were too common in Auburn’s new-look offense, and the Tigers’ drop rate increased from what had already been a not-great number in the previous year.
Inconsistency plagued Auburn’s wide receivers. Ja’Varrius Johnson, a veteran who led the Tigers in receiving in 2022, suffered an early-season injury and went five straight games without recording a catch. He still finished the season as Auburn’s top wide receiver at 347 yards and three touchdowns on only 19 catches.
Jay Fair started the campaign well, racking up 14 catches across the first three weeks of the season. His production tailed off once SEC play began, though, and he didn’t have a game with more than three catches or 36 receiving yards the rest of the way.
Injuries also limited the impact of transfer wide receiver Caleb Burton III, who missed significant time in high school and in his lone season at Ohio State. He didn’t record a catch until the sixth week of the season and finished with 226 yards as a slot option behind Johnson. (Burton also missed time this spring with an injury.)
Burton still finished the season as the top transfer wide receiver on the team, though. Former FCS standout Shane Hooks finished with only 10 catches, with the majority of his action coming in non-conference play. Jyaire Shorter appeared in six games and had a lone catch against Samford. Nick Mardner played in four games but didn’t record a single statistic.
The production was also sporadic with the returning receivers, too. Koy Moore went from Auburn’s No. 2 receiver in 2022 to three catches total in 2023. Camden Brown had 10 catches, most of them coming in the middle of the season. Malcolm Johnson Jr. didn’t have multiple catches in any game after the UMass opener. Omari Kelly had two catches against Samford but nothing else the rest of the year.
Auburn’s passing game struggles were a team effort: quarterback, receivers, offensive line, and — of course — coaching. But the issues out wide arguably stood out the most, especially with tight end Rivaldo Fairweather finishing as the Tigers’ top overall receiver by a large margin and running back Jarquez Hunter netting more receptions than all but two of the wideouts.
So it shouldn’t have come as any surprise when the most radical overhaul on the roster this offseason happened at wide receiver. By the end of the second transfer window, eight of the Tigers’ 2023 receivers had left the program and only two remained: Burton and Brown.
If Auburn’s going to take a significant step forward through the air in 2024, it’s likely going to come from what it was able to do with a two-pronged recruiting approach out wide.
WR Robert Lewis (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)
The Present
The issues at wide receiver in 2023 were frustrating for everyone involved, but the promise of what was coming up next kept spirits high in the early rebuilding process. New receivers coach and former Tiger wideout Marcus Davis wasted no time in establishing himself as an ace recruiter for the staff.