The winds of the offseason took one of Auburn football’s biggest position groups for a ride.
Between the interior and on the edge, Auburn’s defensive line lost 10 players from last fall’s roster. That included transferring underclassmen like Brenton Williams and Wilky Denaud, but it also meant eligibility-less veterans like Elijah McAllister, and surprises like All-SEC defender Marcus Harris opting to go pro.
Of those players, seven of them logged at least 800 career snaps and they combined for 8,280 snaps in their collegiate careers. Both the defensive line and the buck linebacker spots also saw position coach changes, with defensive line coach Jeremy Garrett heading to the NFL and defensive coordinator Ron Roberts taking a job at Florida.
So, a position that needs depth for on-field success has been back at square one this offseason, but first-year defensive line coach Vontrell King-Williams and edge rushing coach Josh Aldridge have made up solid ground.
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That showed Monday, as both USC defensive line transfer Isaiah Raikes and Arkansas State edge rusher transfer Keyron Crawford announced they'd be playing for Auburn this fall, joining former Indiana Hoosier Philip Blidi as the second and third transfers to Auburn's defensive front in a 24-hour span.
In all, Raikes is the fourth defensive line transfer Auburn’s added to its roster this offseason, with Texas transfer Trill Carter and Kansas transfer Gage Keys being the other additions from the December cycle, and Crawford's the first edge rusher addition from the portal. They’re all pieces at a position that Hugh Freeze was bullish about adding to in the spring, and so far his staff has delivered.
“We’ve hit on those two transfers for sure,” King-Williams said of Keys and Carter on March 13. “Of course, you’re early in spring and got a small sample size, but with the small sample size that I’ve seen, those two have been consistent every single day. They’ve made plays every single day. The best part about those two though is that they’re coachable. You can coach them up on something and they’re going to work at it and get it fixed.”
Keys is the least experienced of those four, with just 378 career snaps heading into his junior year. Blidi, Carter and Raikes all provide much more of the experience that Auburn needed to replace. Blidi and Carter each have 1,000-plus career snaps while Raikes had 754 career snaps in College Station.
What’s also of note is what Auburn has replaced in regard to the recruit it has signed. Of the 10 linemen that went into the portal, four of them signed with Auburn out of college with an average 247Sports composite grade of 86.97.
Based on the site’s grading scale, that’s a slighter higher-than-average grade for a three-star prospect. The five signees Auburn added from its 2024 class averaged a grade of 93.24, which is a four-star grade.
Auburn hasn’t broken even on what it has lost experience-wise. Its five transfer additions make up 4,300 snaps; a far cry from the 8,000-plus snaps that left after 2023. But when the Tigers began last season, they had added 5,812 snaps’ worth of experience to their defensive line and edge rusher rooms combined. That puts the program about 1,512 snaps off of where it was a season ago.
There’s an indication in what’s been added this offseason that, whether it’s Blocton, Williams, Waller or Lindsey playing alongside these first-year transfers, Freeze and his staff aren’t incredibly opposed to that circumstance.
“If you look at the way we’re building our classes, we’re building through the high school ranks, which is not common,” King-Williams said. “This past year, I think we signed one of the best D-Line classes in the country. This year, we’ve got some good things going.
"We’re trying to build it through the high school ranks to make it sustainable so guys can play now, guys can play right away and that’s really a big piece.”