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Who is coming, who is going from Auburn’s wide receiver room?

Published: May. 02, 2024, 7:01 a.m.

7–8 minutes

Koy Moore is reportedly entering the transfer portal. It’s the final departure from the previous generation of Auburn receivers and symbolic of the completion of a full-scale overhaul in Auburn’s wide receiver room.

It was a necessary one. Auburn had the worst passing offense in the SEC last year by yards per game. A step in the solution would be improving the talent on the roster.

Moore only had three catches in 2023. But of the seven Auburn wide receivers to have double-digit catches in either of the last two seasons, Moore is the fifth to leave.

Moore is also one of five wide receivers to play in each of the last two seasons for Auburn. Below are the combined statistics for those receivers for the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

ReceptionsYardsTouchdowns

Ja’Varrius Johnson458406

Jay Fair333582

Koy Moore233381

Malcolm Johnson Jr.81170

Omari Kelly51010

Those five account for 63% of Auburn’s receptions from wide receivers over the last two seasons. They account for 67% of Auburn’s receiving yards from wide receivers over the last two seasons. And they account for 69% of touchdowns caught by wide receivers of the last two seasons.

Ja’Varrius Johnson was Auburn’s leading wide receiver in yards each of the last two seasons. Moore was second with 314 in 2022.

Over the last two seasons, Auburn has seen 11 wide receivers leave the program via transfer or graduation. They had a total of 145 catches for 2,179 yards and 11 touchdowns.

As a team regardless of position, the production of those departed makes up 41% of the total catches, 52% of the team’s total yards and 41% of the team’s total receiving touchdowns over the last two years.

Auburn’s passing offense was not particularly productive either of those two seasons. Its 162.2 passing yards per game were the worst in the SEC in 121st out of 130 teams nationally in the 2023 season. Auburn was also last in the SEC and 118th nationally in 2022 with about 172 passing yards per game.

That offense wasn’t good enough. Far from it. But the group now gone had made up a significant portion of the snaps and production of the team regardless of the overall output’s futility.

Yet this was also an exodus Auburn knew it needed. If these were the top producers on a bad offense, then new faces were needed.

So Hugh Freeze made for a full wide receiver room turnover.

As of where Auburn’s roster stands at the beginning of May, there will be seven new scholarship wide receivers on the roster next season.

Incoming WRsArriving From...Recruiting Ranking / 2023 College Stats

Cam ColemanCentral HS (Phenix City, AL)Five-star recruit (No. 5 overall player per 247Sports)

Perry ThompsonFoley HS (Foley, AL)Four-star recruit (No. 38 overall player per 247Sports)

Malcolm SimmonsBenjamin Russell HS (Alexander City, AL)Four-star recruit (No. 150 overall player per 247Sports)

Bryce CainBaker HS (Mobile, AL)Four-star recruit (No. 159 overall payer per 247Sports)

KeAndre Lambert-SmithPenn State53 Rec (led team), 673 Yds (led team), 4 TDs

Sam Jackson VCalPlayed quarterback at Cal

Robert LewisGeorgia State70 Rec, 877 Yds, 7 TDs (all led team)

That group is highlighted by the freshmen: five-star recruit Cam Coleman, four-star recruit Perry Thompson, four-star recruit Bryce Cain and four-star recruit Malcolm Simmons.

It is without question the most talented group of freshman receivers Auburn has ever signed. Coleman is the second highest-rated Auburn recruit of all time regardless of position according to 247Sports. At the time of the December signing period, Thompson was listed as a five-star recruit. Auburn had only ever signed one five-star recruit in program history before this year. At the time of their signing, Auburn had two five-star receivers in this class alone.

Coleman and Cain have already arrived on campus. Thompson and Simmons will get to Auburn this summer. They are the foundational pieces for Freeze’s program, especially Coleman who emerged as a star during spring practices and the A-Day spring game.

Coleman had four catches for 92 yards and a touchdown in the spring game.

He’s on track to be an opening-game starter this fall.

The rest of the freshmen will be expected to produce quickly, especially with so many departures leaving so many available snaps. The goal, of course, is to get the improved talent on the field quickly.

Freeze’s offense will mix the exciting youth with a collection of experience in two returners: Camden Brown and Caleb Burton as well as incoming transfers KeAndre Lambert-Smith from Penn State and Robert Lewis from Georgia State

Both Lambert-Smith and Lewis led their respective teams in receptions and receiving yards last season. Both have just one year of eligibility remaining.

Lambert-Smith was a significant spring addition as Freeze made it clear during spring practices that he was not done targeting wide receivers after the winter transfer winter and the December high school signing period.

They’ll see both a large number of snaps immediately as well as be asked to take on a leadership role — especially Lambert-Smith who has been a key piece of a Penn State offense that played in two New Year’s Six bowls.

And then there’s Sam Jackson V, an intriguing experiment transfer from Cal. Auburn saw Jackson last season when it played Cal. Except Jackson played quarterback then. Auburn is bringing him in as a wide receiver.

Jackson said he last played wide receiver in high school — he and Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne went to the same Naperville, Illinois high school and briefly were teammates there. Jackson wasn’t fully healthy during spring practices, but Auburn players and coaches appear excited about the potential.

“It’s a risk, probably,” Freeze said of Jackson. “But I think he’s one heck of an athlete. I watched all of his high school receiving stuff and he caught all those balls from Payton Thorne. There’s chemistry there.”

The impending addition of the high school recruits and Auburn’s strong pursuit of receivers in the portal were certainly a factor in the departure of such a larger percentage of Auburn’s snaps over the last two seasons.

But the last two seasons didn’t work. The last two seasons included a coaching change in part because of it.

On paper, it’s a much-improved group now.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

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al.com

How a bit of urgency has helped Hugh Freeze and Auburn’s approach to the transfer portal

Published: May. 02, 2024, 6:30 a.m.

6–7 minutes

Hugh Freeze’s wife had heard enough of her husband’s griping about the transfer portal.

“My wife has made me promise I’m through complaining,” Freeze said in early April. “But it’s just difficult. It’s difficult to manage.”

Freeze has long maintained his desire to build Auburn’s football roster through high school recruiting, even if that’s now considered a more dated method.

“Idealistically I’d love to just sign a bunch of high school and build great relationships with them and never lose them,” Freeze said in December. “I don’t know — that may be in dream land with the way the climate is of college football today.”

Back in December, Freeze and the Tigers’ coaching staff, for the most part, did just that as they landed a top 10 recruiting class, which featured a historic crop of wide receivers and the last-minute, signing-day flip of 4-star defensive lineman Amaris Williams.

However, none of that came easy.

During his national signing day press conference on Dec. 20, Freeze recalled having to “stay up all night and play video games” in an effort to fend off some of the “late-night pushes” that were coming from competing programs.

Keeping those high school players in the fold was Freeze’s priority and it showed — not only during the successful signing day, but also in the less-than-successful winter transfer portal window.

“I don’t think I have done very well, truthfully,” Freeze said of Auburn’s success in the transfer portal during his press conference on Dec. 16. “It’s difficult.”

At the time, Auburn had added just two transfers in Georgia State transfer wide receiver Robert Lewis and Kansas transfer defensive lineman Gage Keys, all while having seen a dozen Auburn players enter their names into the transfer portal.

And while the Tigers went on to add seven more transfers before the transfer portal window closed on Jan. 2, Freeze felt he and his staff left opportunities on the table after the Tigers entered the race for a handful of transfer targets, but never got them in the boat.

“We’ve had many visits set and they never even get to campus and they’ve already decided where they’re going before we ever get to ever get in front of them,” Freeze said. “Maybe I need to change our approach some to that, but before we get really serious with someone, I’d love to get in front of them and have some conversations.”

In short, Freeze and the Tigers hadn’t yet mastered the art of speed dating in the transfer portal — a shortcoming that needed to change come the spring transfer window.

Auburn approached the spring transfer window looking to address two specific areas of need: the defensive line and pass catchers.

And in learning from their struggles during the winter transfer window, Freeze and Auburn’s coaching staff moved quickly.

“The portal world, maybe we need to start trying to visit them as soon as you can instead of setting up for a weekend that never happens,” Freeze said.

So that was Auburn’s approach.

On the morning of April 16, the first day the portal opened, the Tigers reportedly expressed interest in Penn State transfer wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith, who told On3 Sports that Auburn was one of the teams he’d heard from since entering the portal.

Come the very next day, April 17, Indiana transfer defensive lineman Philip Blidi was wrapping up his official visit to The Plains. Meanwhile, it was reported that Lambert-Smith and Arkansas State transfer edge rusher Keyron Crawford had both scheduled visits of their own.

Hugh Freeze and Co. were moving quickly.

Come April 21, the Tigers began seeing the fruits of their labor as Blidi gave Auburn its first commitment of the spring transfer window.

The next afternoon, Auburn won the commitment of former Texas A&M and USC defensive lineman Isaiah Raikes, followed by the commitment of Crawford just hours later.

In less than a 24-hour span, the Tigers added a mixed bag of experience to their defensive line.

But the biggest splash would come just two days later with the commitment of Lambert-Smith, who chose Auburn over Texas A&M, giving the Tigers the top-ranked wide receiver in the portal.

With the quick additions of Blidi, Raikes, Crawford and Lambert-Smith, Auburn had effectively addressed the two needs laid out by Freeze following the A-Day spring game, which was a complete 180-degree flip from the winter transfer portal window.

It all goes to show that Freeze and Auburn’s staff were never downright bad or incapable of landing transfer targets.

Instead, it points to it being tough to stay up all night playing video games with high school recruits, while also having to worry about hastily scheduling visits for transfer targets.

And that’s Freeze’s gripe.

“I think our calendar is extremely messed up,” Freeze said in December. “It’s not good for high school recruiting, portal recruiting, managing your own team, getting ready for bowl prep. I think our calendar needs a serious, serious look at it for what’s best for our game. It’s hard for any of us to truly manage all of it.”

But Freeze’s wife doesn’t want to hear it, hence her making Freeze promise to stop whining about it.

Fortunately for her, Auburn’s recent portal success might temper some of Freeze’s complaints — for now at least.

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