State of the Position 2024: Safeties

Auburn must replace its first All-SEC safety in nearly 20 years. The future looks bright, but the Tigers can't just bank on recruiting potential.

This is Part 8 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.

The goal is to run a pair of these each week. On Monday and Tuesday this week, we’ll do the Auburn secondary.

STATE OF THE POSITION: QB • WR • LB • EDGE • RB • TE • CB

DB Caleb Wooden (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

The Past

Safety isn’t usually a position that gets a massive amount of attention. You’re more likely to remember elite cornerbacks than you are elite safeties, outside of the household names in the SEC like Tyrann Mathieu or Eric Berry. For example, Auburn hadn’t had a first-team All-SEC safety since the ball-hawking and head-hunting Junior Rosegreen back in 2004.

So it really sticks out when a safety captures the hearts and minds of Auburn fans at the level that Jaylin Simpson did in 2023. It was more than just his now-famous “Plankton Mentality” catchphrase and sideline dances. It’s what happens when you become a vital playmaker on the back end of a defense, like when Simpson became the first Tiger to record four interceptions in a season in nearly a decade.

Simpson got first-team All-SEC honors from the Associated Press for his senior campaign, along with a fifth-round draft selection by the Indianapolis Colts. Only two players in the league finished with more picks, and Simpson posted some elite coverage numbers — opposing quarterbacks had a rating of just 54.0 on throws against him.

Of course, Simpson wasn’t a safety for the majority of his career. The former blue-chip prospect was an outside cornerback during the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons. He only made the move back to safety late in 2022 because of injuries elsewhere, but he thrived there. Without him, Auburn would have had even more struggles on the defensive side of the ball in an up-and-down 2023 campaign.

He was paired at safety with Zion Puckett, another ultra-experienced senior who finished third in defensive snaps behind D.J. James and Simpson. Puckett didn’t have nearly as productive of a 2023 as Simpson, although he came down with a pair of interceptions and had several strong performances in SEC play.

The consistency, especially in coverage, just wasn’t there for most of the season. But Puckett got a huge number of snaps, to the point where Auburn didn’t have much behind him and Simpson at the true safety spots. Donovan Kaufman, the undersized and rangy playmaker, was much more of a nickel than a safety. (Kaufman, who was firmly in the second unit in 2023, transferred to NC State this offseason.)

While Simpson and Puckett both played over 600 defensive snaps, the next true safety on the list was Caleb Wooden at 218. The younger brother of former defensive line standout Colby Wooden, he graded out well in his second season but didn’t get extended run in any games outside of the Samford win and the Maryland bowl loss.

Beyond that, you have to go down to a true freshman class that mostly got work on special teams and in garbage time. Terrance Love, a huge safety from Atlanta, played past the redshirt limit of four games but only got 68 snaps. Sylvester Smith, a fellow highly rated signee in the 2023 class, had 29 defensive snaps in three games.

The rest of the limited opportunities at the position went to former JUCO transfer Marquise Gilbert and walk-on Griffin Speaks. (Gilbert transferred out of the program this offseason.) C.J. Johnson, a 6-foot-2 freshman safety from Texas, didn’t see any game action while redshirting.

While Auburn was getting a head start on life with a new-look secondary in the Music City Bowl, Charles Kelly was on his way to Hugh Freeze’s second staff.

Kelly, a former Auburn player, has been a prominent defensive coach and ace recruiter known for his stellar stretches at Florida State and Alabama. He returned to his alma mater to coach safeties — his career speciality — and serve as the co-defensive coordinator after a roller coaster of a 2023 year under Deion Sanders at Colorado.

Kelly won’t inherit the same amount of returning experience at safety as fellow defensive backs coach Wesley McGriff at corner. But the Tigers quickly went to work in rounding out the room for his first season back on the Plains, and he’s got several bright young talents who could become key players as early as this fall.

DB Jerrin Thompson (Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

The Present