The Nerd's Auburn Football Transfer Portal Big Board: Defense v1.0
The Tigers need to reload at several key spots on DJ Durkin's defense. Here are the portal targets who make the most sense right now.
Once again, today’s Observer newsletter comes courtesy of new contributor AUNerd — who some of you may remember from his blogging days at College & Magnolia. Nerd is excellent at breaking down Auburn football, especially recruiting, roster management and Xs and Os.
Nerd shared Part 1 of his Auburn football transfer portal big board on Wednesday, focusing on all the new pieces the Tigers will need on the offensive side of the ball. In case you missed it, you can check it out here:
The transfer portal is ever-changing.
It seems like every hour another potential impact player announces their intentions to enter. That rhythm will likely only increase as bowl season wraps up. Fourteen teams still have games scheduled, with six of those teams playing in the College Football Playoff. There are likely some really big names that have yet to announce their intentions, either because their team is still playing meaningful games, or they are waiting for the portal to officially open.
As a result, I am trying to hit a moving target right now. Don’t be surprised if by the time you read this, some of the info is already stale or lacking higher-priority names. It’s just the nature of the beast that is the transfer portal.
My attempt here is more to provide you with high-level guidance on the types of players Auburn will be targeting vs exactly nailing what their board might look like. With that said, there are some names already in the portal that will very clearly be priorities for the Tigers when the portal opens Friday.
On that note, it’s important to understand that just because the portal opens on Friday, it does not mean that every player is instantly in the portal. There’s an official NCAA database that tracks who is in the portal, and until a player’s name appears in that database, they cannot “officially” be recruited.
Schools have up to 48 hours to enter names when notified, so don’t be surprised if things move somewhat slowly Friday and Saturday.
But, by Sunday, all bets are off. Auburn fans will need to keep their heads on a swivel, because the Tigers need to add 35+ players, which means they need to target 50+ players.
After a month of kids explicitly saying they don’t want to play for Auburn, it should be an exciting two weeks and a nice change of pace to get a deluge of news about players that do want to be Auburn Tigers.
Let’s dive into the defensive side of the ball and see what early names have emerged and what types of players Auburn fans should keep an eye on this portal cycle.
Defensive Line
There are some positions where rebuilding from the transfer portal is notoriously difficult. The offensive line is a great example. You can absolutely find plug-and-play pieces, but the pool of talent isn’t large — and everyone is fishing.
The defensive line is not like that. If there’s any place where there is an abundance of talent you can sign and deploy immediately with great success, it’s here.
Looking back over the last two seasons at the top 20 graded defensive linemen per Pro Football Focus (PFF), 16 of the 40 are former transfers. If you focus just on the top 20 graded DL over the past two seasons in the SEC, 18 of the 40 are from the portal.
On top of that, Auburn’s defensive line coach Vontrell King-Williams has more than earned the right to be trusted at this point. Over the past two seasons, the interior of Auburn’s DL has been a major concern heading into the season. But, in each of those seasons, his group has produced, with much of that production driven by transfer portal acquisitions.
In the last two seasons, Auburn has had at least two players grade out as top 20 defensive linemen in the conference:
(2025) Bobby Jamison-Travis | 3-star JUCO signee
(2025) Dallas Walker IV | Western Kentucky Transfer
(2024) Jayson Jones | Oregon Transfer
(2024) Philip Blidi | Indiana Transfer
I also note that Isaiah Raikes, a Texas A&M transfer, graded out as an above-average defender in 2024. Not every portal pickup has panned out, but overall, Auburn’s third-year defensive line coach has more than proven he’s capable of both identifying portal talent that fits what the Tigers are trying to do on defense and get the most out of that talent on Saturdays.
He’s going to need to do that again this cycle. As of today, Auburn only has six players on its DL depth chart: (Note I am not including Bucks in this group.)
Malik Autry | 6’5” | 330 | Sophomore | Former 4-star/Top 100 prospect
Jared Smith | 6’6” | 260 | Sophomore | Former 4-star/Top 100 prospect
Jourdan Crawford | 6’0” | 337 | Sophomore | Former 4-star
Darrion Smith | 6’2” | 271 | Sophomore | Former 3-star
Corey Wells | 6’5” | 330 | Freshman | 4-star signee
Tavian Branch | 6’4” | 295 | Freshman | 3-star signee
You hope the 2025 DL class can take a big step forward in 2026 and develop into high-caliber SEC players. But that’s far from a guarantee.
As a result, Auburn will be shopping for more talent up front this portal cycle.
Michai Boireau | 6’4” | 349 | Junior | Florida
20 tackles, 2.0 TFL, 2.0 sacks, 1 INT
Traevon Mitchell | 6’0” | 282 | Graduate Senior | USF
29 tackles, 6.0 TFL, 2.0 sacks
We start at nose tackle, where the Tigers should have quite a few solid options.