Somehow, it feels like Jarquez Hunter is flying under the radar

Although he'll likely be a first-team All-SEC selection later this week, the senior back isn't getting a ton of buzz. But he probably prefers that.

RB Jarquez Hunter (Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

Later this week, when the SEC announces the annual preseason awards and predicted order of finish, Jarquez Hunter will likely be a first-team running back.

Hunter feels like he has the best odds to be a first-teamer of anyone on Auburn’s rebuilding 2024 roster, with tight end Rivaldo Fairweather being a very close second.

Hunter and Fairweather both finished the 2023 season as second-team All-SEC selections by the league’s coaches, alongside Jaylin Simpson — who is now with the Indianapolis Colts in the NFL.

After the dust settled with all the roster movement across the SEC this offseason, Hunter emerged as the league’s returning leader in rushing yardage.

Even when you add league newcomers Oklahoma and Texas, Hunter stands atop the list. Last year, 24 players on the current 16 SEC schools rushed for at least 500 yards.

Nine of the top 12 are now in the NFL. Quinshon Judkins left the conference, transferring from Ole Miss to Ohio State. Hunter and Florida’s Montrell Johnson Jr. are the only returners who cracked 800-plus yards in 2023. And, with quarterback Payton Thorne at 515 yards, Auburn is the only SEC school to bring back a pair of 500-yard rushers who were with the same program last season.

While Auburn has a well-established tradition for pumping out some of the most prolific running backs in the SEC, it hasn’t had the league’s top returning rusher since all the way back in 2006 — when Kenny Irons came back after leading the conference with 1,293 rushing yards in 2005.

(And, although Irons wasn’t able to replicate his rushing title in 2006, Auburn went from a 9-3 team to an 11-2 team that season. It would be the last time the Tigers finished in the top 10 of the final AP poll until the 2010 national championship.)

But, even with the title of the SEC’s top returning rusher next to his name, it feels like Hunter has flown under the radar this offseason on a team that isn’t overloaded in the star department by any means.

Hunter didn’t get a ton of buzz during spring practices. The attention on the offense was almost exclusively on the much-needed development of the passing game with Thorne and a brand-new cast of characters at wide receiver.

Even at his own position — one that saw assistant coach Cadillac Williams resign from the program and be replaced by new offensive coordinator Derrick Nix — Auburn fans’ focus has been on rising sophomore running back Jeremiah Cobb more.

Heading into the 2024 season, Hunter shouldn’t be taken for granted. He could have jumped to the NFL as a draft-eligible junior. Besides, three different SEC rushers who finished behind him in yardage went pro. He could have also hit the transfer portal, just like seven of the 24 rushers in the above table did.

After all, Hunter is the only signee from Auburn’s 2021 recruiting class — a hybrid of Gus Malzahn era commitments and late-arriving Bryan Harsin pickups — who didn’t leave the program early.

Instead, Hunter is back, and Auburn has one of its most successful running backs of the modern era for one more season.