Auburn Football Makes B/R's List of Transfer Portal Winners and Losers

The Auburn Tigers finished 5-7 in 2024, and while there was plenty of blame to go around for the losing season, there were obvious holes on the roster.

Head coach Hugh Freeze had been busy all year on the recruiting trail and closed another top-10 class in December. Then the transfer portal opened, and Freeze and his staff went to work.

Auburn has added 16 veteran players from the portal and has the No. 4 portal class in the country according to 247 Sports.

It's not just sheer numbers that have made this portal class so important to the 2025 campaign, Freeze has filled big needs at crucial positions like quarterback and offensive tackle.

Bleacher Report (B/R) took notice of the work Auburn has done, and named the Tigers among its winners in a recent list of winners and losers. The Tigers were joined by Oregon, LSU, and Miami as the portal's winners.

"Auburn is desperate for improvement at quarterback. There are worse places to start than Jackson Arnold and Ashton Daniels," wrote David Kenyon on B/R.

"It's undeniable that Arnold didn't play to expectations in 2024—he likely wouldn't have left Oklahoma otherwise. Still, his upside is worth chasing. Daniels also had a rough season at Stanford but brings two years of starting experience to bolster depth at the position.

"Auburn brought in receivers Eric Singleton Jr. (Georgia Tech) and Horatio Fields (Wake Forest), along with likely starting tackles Xavier Chaplin (Virginia Tech) and Mason Murphy (USC). Running back Durell Robinson (Connecticut) eclipsed 800 total yards as a freshman, too."

Auburn's defense is chock full of talent after back to back top-10 classes and a potential top-five draft pick in Keldrick Faulk from Freeze's first class in 2023. However, the Tigers went out and added veteran experience to fill gaps.

"Among the defensive transfers, the Tigers added edge-rusher Chris Murray (Sam Houston) and corner Raion Strader (Miami (OH))," Kenyon continued. "Both of them earned first-team all-conference honors in 2024."

Not many coaches would get a chance to coach a third year on the Plains after starting 11-14 in their first two seasons. But circumstances were a little different when Freeze took over in 2023.

Previous head coach Bryan Harsin was universally understood to have sunk the Tigers' talent level to its lowest point in decades. Freeze had more work to do than most new coaches at Auburn to get the Tigers back to a competitive level.

He's doing that by being arguably the best recruiter Auburn has seen in the recruit-rankings era. His ability to improve the talent on paper in a big way has bought him some leeway.

He'll need to be a big winner on the field this year if he's to get a fourth season. His fate will rest in the hands of this transfer class, particularly quarterback Jackson Arnold.

B/R thinks Auburn is a big winner of the transfer portal, and now Freeze will need to turn recruiting wins into results on the field.