Mailbag 235: How would you grade Auburn's early portal work?

This week: Proof of concept, OL rebuilding, the NIL Era, basketball panic, defensive improvements, salads and WCW tag teams

(Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

AUBURN — Ask, and you shall receive.

I’ll be honest: Earlier this week, I only got a few questions for the return of the mailbag. I was worried about not having enough, so I sent an email call for the first time on Thursday morning.

The response? Several dozen questions.

I’m not going to be able to get to all of them, and this is already tilting the scales as one of the biggest mailbags I’ve ever done. But we’ve got so much to talk about with this busy time for Auburn football in the portal and Auburn basketball in SEC play.

I’ve already got the rest of the questions you guys have sent this week lined up for future mailbags, so don’t worry if you don’t see yours on here this week. I’ll get to it.

Thanks as always for the response and the support for The Observer. Let’s go.

How do you grade out Alex Golesh and Co.’s early returns in the transfer portal so far? Any early surprises that could raise or lower this team’s ceiling come Fall?

Ryan

Any Week 1 takeaways from the transfer portal?

Daniel

If you’re grading Auburn’s early haul in the transfer portal, you could say it got an easy A at the most important position on the field — quarterback.

I don’t want to go too overboard in my hype here, because Byrum Brown is going to have to make the jump to the SEC from being a Group of Five quarterback. However, you could make a strong, statistics-based argument that Brown was a top-five quarterback in the country this season. He led the nation in yards per attempt off play-action and in yards per true carry. He was one of the very best deep-ball passers, too.

Auburn had to get a Day 1 starter in the transfer portal this offseason. Brown is the No. 2-ranked transfer quarterback by On3. ESPN has him at No. 4. 247 has him at No. 8, but the rating is basically a tie for No. 5. The only quarterback ahead of him in all three outlets is Sam Leavitt, who is coming off a foot injury that kept him out for half the season at Arizona State. Brendan Sorsby got a lot of love in the rankings and a lot of money from Texas Tech, but he also had some rough outings in the second half of the season at Cincinnati — where he lost his last four starts.

And you can give bonus points to Brown for being in the exact same system under the exact same coaches for what will be a fourth straight season. Auburn hasn’t had the same quarterback-coordinator combination since 2018. It hasn’t had the same combination for more than two seasons since 2007. Brown knows the offense and is coming off a season where he put up ridiculous numbers. Auburn had to get him.

Brown will also benefit from getting to play with a bunch of guys he knows. Auburn has brought in three of his top five receivers from last season and could be close to landing his No. 1. USF’s top running back and best-looking tight end have also joined. There’s a familiarity there that won’t have to be built up. That’s going to matter.

The pickup on Thursday of Arkansas State defensive line transfer Cody Sigler is a nice one. He has worked his way up from Division II West Alabama to being one of the top-graded defensive lineman not just in the Group of Five, but all of the FBS, this season. He has the size, experience and all-around game the Tigers need to add around the likes of Malik Autry and Jourdin Crawford.

Elsewhere, I like the addition of safety Fred Gaskin III from USF — just a good all-around ballplayer that AUNerd compared to one of my all-time favorites, Daniel Thomas. At tight end, Xavier Newsom was a former blue-chipper who would have ended up somewhere big out of high school if it wasn’t for an injury.

Stanton Ramil is the type of offensive lineman that Auburn needs to get out of the portal. He was a former 4-star at in-state powerhouse Thompson who was a starter in the Big Ten for each of the last two seasons, when he was healthy. He’s a top-10 offensive tackle in the portal per 247, and everybody is trying to land those right now. (We’ll talk more about the offensive line later.)

If Auburn is indeed retaining pretty much everyone who hasn’t announced that they’re transferring, I see the foundation of a plug-and-play offense that is still hunting for more contributors at the skill positions, including some former top recruits at receiver. The offensive line is a massive overhaul project, for sure. The defensive front needs to be reloaded, as well as cornerback. Everywhere else is in a pretty good spot right now.

And we’ve still got about another week of portal movement. Auburn is constantly bringing in interesting names for visits. It’s not going to get all of them, of course. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but bringing in pieces of the offense that went a long way in getting Alex Golesh this job and swinging big elsewhere is a good start.

(Austin Perryman/Auburn Tigers)

For Golesh, how does “establish the proof of concept” square with “brought most of his skill position players from USF?” Is it easier to show proof of concept when/if it immediately works in Year 1, or does he need to do it without relying on his USF players out of the portal?

Feels like doing it at Tennessee could be that proof of concept, but curious for your thoughts all the same.

Lindsay