Currently Auburn holds eight commitments in the 2025 cycle, which is ranked No. 3 in the country by 247Sports behind just Notre Dame and Alabama. Things don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon, either.
Not counting in any of Auburn’s eight commitments, a look at 25 of the top names to know for the upcoming recruiting class and the latest in their recruitment:
It’s been a whirlwind first year for Marcus Davis back at his alma mater in 2023 as an assistant, from scrambling to get transfer pieces in place last offseason, to heading up an inexperienced and oft-criticized receiving corps during the season, and now signing the most talented crop of wideouts in program history.
Wednesday was arguably the biggest day of Davis’ young coaching career. Less than Seven years after hanging up his cleats on the Plains, he brought some unprecedented talent to his alma mater.
“All of our staff put in great effort, but Marcus Davis — he had to spend extra, extra time because of the number of kids we were trying to sign there, too, and the ranking of them,” Freeze said on signing day.
The Tigers signed two 5-stars — Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson — at the same position for the first time in program history. All four signees are blue-chippers, too, as Bryce Cain and Malcolm Simmons are both ranked as 4-stars and top-200 overall players in the 2024 class.
So what about Davis’ recruiting chops — doing so as a Power Five assistant for the first time in his career — allowed him to be so successful?
For starters, Coleman, who committed to Texas A&M in the summer, said Davis has made him feel like a part of the class at Auburn even when he was pledged to another SEC program.
“Even though I just joined the family, it feels like I’ve been a part of this since the beginning of my recruiting process,” Coleman said on this week’s Auburn Undercover Podcast. “Auburn never stopped showing me love.”
It was a staff-wide effort to eventually flip Coleman earlier this month — helped by the fact Texas A&M fired Jimbo Fisher, and Aggies receivers coach Dameyune Craig was not retained — but it was Davis who maintained the biggest relationship and kept that avenue open for Auburn to land him.
“When Cam made his commitment to another school, we immediately said, look, that’s fine, but we’re not going to waiver,” Freeze said. “We’re not going away, and we’re going to fight to the end. We’ll prove to you that we want you more, that we obviously feel like you’re a difference-maker here. We just were relentless with making sure he understood that. Obviously it helped that the other school had a coaching change. I’d like to think we were going to win it anyway, but I don’t know if that’s the case or not. I’m glad it worked out the way it did.”
Coleman and Thompson are the big, flashy gems of the class, but Davis also secured two other top receiving talents from the state in Simmons and Cain. Auburn signed four of the top five wide receivers in the state of Alabama, per 247Sports ratings, and could have all five if 5-star Ryan Williams flips in February.
“Going to see other receiver coaches, they weren’t talking how he was talking,” Simmons said on this week’s Auburn Undercover Podcast. “I felt like Coach Davis was a coach I could play for and is going to push me to be the best I can be.”
Davis’ history at Auburn is also attractive to a recruit, Simmons said, after Davis won an SEC championship in 2013 and played for a national title.
“Knowing that he played for Auburn and was on that championship team — it’s a dream come true to play for a coach like that,” Simmons said. “He’s given back to us so we can be successful at Auburn and make it to the next level.”
With the dust settled on the early signing period, Davis finishes ranked as the No. 3 recruiter in the country by 247Sports. The two coaches ahead of him — Syracuse head coach and former Georgia defensive backs coach Fran Brown, and Alabama receivers coach Holmon Wiggins — have seven and nine commitments that they were primary recruiters for, respectively. Davis has only the four wide receiver commits. The next highest-ranked recruiter on the list with only four commitments is Georgia’s Tray Scott at No. 8.
Following a few years in off-the-field roles at his alma mater and Florida State, Davis began his career as a full-time assistant just three seasons ago, when he landed a gig as Hawaii’s receivers coach in 2021. He then spent one season at Georgia Southern.
Helping to close the deal on the flips of Coleman and Thompson was Auburn quarterback signee Walker White, rated as the No. 7 passer in the country and the unquestioned leader of the class. Since committing in February, White was instrumental in recruiting other players to Auburn’s 2024 class, and he took multiple visits to campus just to develop relationships with targets and other commitments.
“It was very important,” Coleman said of his continued relationship with White and Auburn’s fellow receiver commits, even while he was pledged to Texas A&M. “At the end of the day, those are my teammates and my brothers for life. It shows they want a relationship and want to build a relationship with each other.”
With a ratings bump, Coleman is now the No. 2 overall recruit in Auburn history, now ahead of Derrick Brown and behind only Byron Cowart. Thompson alone would have already been the team’s highest-rated receiver signee since Ben Obomanu in 2022.
Freeze is no stranger to high-level receiving talent in the SEC, and he hopes Davis’ infusion of playmakers in the passing game is what Auburn needs to take the next step as an offense.
“It’s no secret we needed to get some difference-makers at the receiver position,” Freeze said. “To land two of the top 10 in the nation in Perry and Cam and then two others that I think are sleepers. But they are ranked in, what, the top 150 in the country? Bryce and Malcolm. Now, they’re going to have to get thrown into the deep end of the pool and swim pretty fast, but I think they have that ability. It changes our offense if we have guys like that on the outside and in the slot that can make plays. I’ve seen them do it.
“I’m reminded when we started rebuilding Ole Miss, that first full class just like this first full class, we talked a guy by the name of Laquon Treadwell in coming with us. It changed the way we called games. I feel the same about Cam and Perry and Malcolm and Bryce. You combined Walker (White) with those, I think we did pretty good at the skill positions.”
Leave a Reply