Auburn Portal Addition Making Waves at Cornerback

The Auburn Tigers are currently in the midst of practice, with the mix of established players and transfer portal additions fighting to secure starting roles as the annual A-Day game and the beginning of the season approach.

The secondary has experienced an especially high rate of turnover, most notably at the cornerback position. Auburn’s top two corners from 2025, Jay Crawford and Kayin Lee, both transferred out in the offseason. Crawford went to Ole Miss and Lee to Tennessee, both teams that the Tigers will play in 2026.

However, in the wake of their departure, the position is wide-open for all of the players currently on the Auburn roster. Safety Eric Winters was asked if anyone on the team stood out to him at the position, and his answer was nearly instant.

“Dre [Jordan], Dre. He’s a baller,” Winters said. “He gets his hands on a lot of balls.”

Jordan transferred to Auburn from UCLA in the offseason after earning an All-Big Ten honorable mention in 2025. He was one of the players who made my list of the Tigers’ five most underrated portal additions from this past offseason after the portal window closed, and is now projected to be Auburn’s top cornerback in 2026.

Despite his 2025 accolades, Jordan was just the No. 18 portal corner via On3’s Rivals and No. 32 at the position via 247 Sports, hence his place on my list of underrated additions. Furthermore, in a class headlined by an avalanche of primarily offensive additions from USF, namely new quarterback Byrum Brown, potential defensive studs like Jordan slipped even more under the radar.

However, he is clearly putting himself on the map as Auburn continues to work its way through spring practices. Jordan, a former zero-star recruit to Oregon State, is a prototypical boundary corner. He is 6-foot-1 and 175 pounds, taller than any boundary player the Tigers had in 2025. He is also adept at handling bigger receivers off the line, a skill that will need to show up once again in the SEC.

Though, as Winters said, the best part of Jordan’s game is his defense at the catch point. He is extremely adept at separating the ball from receivers on film, something which showed up in a big way in his tape from UCLA’s game against USC last fall.

Despite being large and physical, Jordan is not a bad athlete. He does not have the pure long speed of a player like South Carolina’s Brandon Cisse or Georgia’s Daylen Everette, but he is more than fast enough to stay in phase with receivers, especially when combined with his physical play style.

I would expect the senior to start on the boundary for Auburn easily in the fall and lead the way for his position in 2026, followed by the returning junior Rayshawn Pleasant. The remaining Auburn corners are all very inexperienced, but the Tigers’ returning rotation of slot corners and safeties should help mitigate the issue as the younger players learn to adjust.

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