Xavier Atkins Earns Watchlist Spot for Prestigious Award

Though Cody Sigler has possessed–and earned–much of the attention surrounding the Auburn Tigers’ defense over the past couple of days, Xavier Atkins’ prowess is making sure that no one forgets about the Tiger linebacker ahead of the 2026 season.

Recently, the Dick Butkus Award revealed its 51-player preseason watchlist, and Atkins, to little surprise, made the list. The Butkus Award is given annually to college football’s best linebacker, and though Jacob Rodriguez of Texas Tech earned the honors last year, Atkins’ name was still heavily involved in the conversation.

This is quite impressive on the part of Atkins, who, prior to his 2025 season at Auburn, had only accounted for three total tackles in his career. Transferring from LSU to Auburn, where he went from a deep rotation spot to a mainline starter, was clearly a great decision for Atkins, who quickly found his spot in an already loaded Tiger defense.

Atkins managed to amass 84 total tackles, 60 solo tackles, nine sacks, two forced fumbles, a fumble recovery, and an interception across his 2025 campaign, top-notch stats for any linebacker, much less one in his first year as a starter. Additionally, Atkins’ 17 tackles for loss led the SEC and were the most ever recorded by a Tiger linebacker in a single season.

For his efforts in that season, Atkins also earned Second Team All-America honors, First Team All-SEC honors, a nod as a Chuck Bednarik Award Semifinalist, a nod as Monday Morning QB Birmingham Club’s SEC Most Valuable Lineman and a SEC Co-Defensive Player of the Week and Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week for his performance in the Tigers’ matchup with Arkansas.

Now, Atkins has turned his focus to the 2026 season, still under defensive coordinator DJ Durkin but also under a new head coach in Alex Golesh, who is quite confident in his linebacker’s abilities ahead of his first season as a head coach in the SEC.

“Xavier was obviously an All-American that is still young, that is still trying to figure out who he is and what it is to lead, what that really looks like," Golesh said back in June. "He's a perfect fit for our system. His physicality has really grown."

To actually take home the Butkus Award, especially with all of the top-tier linebacker play that is dominating football as of late, will be no small task for Atkins, but if any Tiger can do it, the odds would certainly favor the junior.

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