Auburn Daily

Auburn's Biggest Needs After Day One of the Early Signing Period

Newly hired Auburn football head coach Alex Golesh will have to attack the portal to fill some of the Tigers' holes.
Dre Gaines|
Newly hired Auburn football head coach Alex Golesh will have to attack the portal to fill some of the Tigers' holes.
Newly hired Auburn football head coach Alex Golesh will have to attack the portal to fill some of the Tigers' holes. | Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Auburn Tigers

AUBURN, Ala.- The Auburn Tigers enter the second of three days in the early signing day period with some gaps remaining, despite jumping 58 spots in the latest 247 Sports Composite recruiting rankings.

On Wednesday, Auburn and new head coach Alex Golesh signed 15 recruits with just five-star receiver Jase Mathews as the lone unsigned commit, indicating that the Tigers will likely heavily dip into the transfer portal for its other needs.

Auburn Tigers on SI ranks the three biggest remaining needs for the Tigers that will need to be addressed in the rest of the early signing period and when the NCAA Transfer Portal opens on Jan. 2. 

Offensive Line

Two offensive linemen were signed during the early signing period in Mykall Lundy-Foster and Parker Pritchett. Lundy-Foster is a 6-foot-4, 320-pound three-star offensive lineman from Tallahassee, Fla. and a former USF commit who flipped on Wednesday.

Pritchett, a 6-foot-4, 310-pound three-star from Columbus, Ga., also helps fill the need for offensive linemen for the Tigers. Pritchett has been committed to Auburn since April.

The two will help provide depth as true freshmen as Auburn shuffles its offensive line as a result of seniors Mason Murphy, Dillon Wade and Jeremiah Wright leaving the program. The only offensive linemen that started at one point during the 2025 season that Auburn has are Connor Lew, Kail Ellis and Xavier Chaplin, leaving large gaps to be filled. 

Not to mention, the Tigers need multiple instant impact players after ranking 131st in the country in sacks allowed (fourth-most), giving up 42 sacks that led to 257 lost yards.

Tight Ends

The tight end room last season consisted primarily of junior Preston Howard and outgoing senior Brandon Frazier.

Howard was never a consistent player for Auburn, often dropping open passes and causing unnecessary penalties. Auburn signed 6-foot-5, 225-pound tight end DJ Broughton from Mobile, Ala., during the early signing period, but will likely look to the portal to bring in a tight end who has shown that he can perform consistently at a high level. 

Edge Rushers

With edge Keldrick Faulk likely departing for the 2026 NFL Draft and Keyron Crawford graduating, it leaves a large void behind in the Auburn edge rusher room. Both starters combined for seven sacks and 68 tackles on the season.

So far, Auburn has signed two edge rushers: 6-foot-4, 245-pound four-star Jaquez Wilkes from Wadley, Alabama, and 6-foot-3, 215-pound Chris Wells from Petal, Mississippi. Wilkes and Wells could see early playing time at Auburn, not only with the departure of Faulk and Crawford, but also because defensive coordinator DJ Durkin tends to play freshmen. 

More From Auburn Tigers on SI

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Dre Gaines
DRE GAINES

Dre is a veteran of the U.S. Navy from Riverside, California. He is a Journalism major with a specialty in Sports Production. He has experience in sports media content production with Eagle Eye including reporting as well as producing/directing.

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