Eric Singleton Jr. and Auburn's red-hot month in the portal: Inside Tigers' turnaround plans

Auburn’s signing of former Georgia Tech receiver Eric Singleton Jr. solidified the Tigers as one of the hottest teams in college football’s transfer portal.

The Tigers, who have landed 14 transfers since the portal opened on Dec. 9, have the fourth-best transfer class in the country, according to 247Sports and On3. The influx of talent should provide a serious jolt to a team that went 5-7 and is looking for its first winning season since 2020.

Auburn general manager Will Redmond and his personnel staff spent months evaluating talent and preparing for the portal window to help set the Tigers up for their success. The Tigers’ recent victories in battles for in-demand transfers including Singleton, the consensus top receiver available, also point to a name, image and likeness budget that has risen to meet their competition near the top of the market.

The result could flip the script for Auburn in 2025 after 6-7 and 5-7 finishes in Hugh Freeze’s first two seasons at the helm.

mood@WillRedmond_AU 🤝 @therealkwat pic.twitter.com/V64BHHeak4

— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) December 23, 2024

“I think it’s evident that the work paid off,” said T.J. Randall, Auburn’s former assistant director of player personnel and scouting, who spent nearly all of 2024 with the Tigers. “I think it’s a really good start to what they want to do.”

Randall, who worked in college football personnel for the last seven years before leaving Auburn on Dec. 15 to pursue opportunities outside the industry, offered some insight Monday into the Tigers’ portal strategy and how their new additions could impact them.

How Auburn prepared for December

Auburn’s portal work began in late August, when Redmond assigned five recruiting staffers two position groups each to evaluate. Each staffer was to build a list of players they thought might enter the portal for advanced scouting purposes.

By late September, the recruiting department had begun to dive into evaluating those players, monitoring their film all the way up until the portal opened while also accounting for off-the-radar players of interest who emerged over the course of the season. Randall said he personally evaluated 81 quarterbacks and 70 tight ends.

When the portal opened and names started rolling in, Auburn’s staff already had a feel for who could actually play for the Tigers, whether as a starter or as a rotational player.

Offensive line, defensive line and quarterback were identified by the staff as the highest-priority needs. “We needed big bodies up front,” Randall said. Former USC offensive tackle Mason Murphy (6 foot 5, 315 pounds), former Virginia Tech offensive tackle Xavier Chaplin (6-7, 323) and former Western Kentucky and Texas A&M defensive tackle Dallas Walker IV (6-4, 318) all qualify.

The quarterback situation

The Tigers knew they’d need at least one quarterback with two-year starter Payton Thorne graduating, and possibly more if others entered the portal (two others did: Hank Brown and Walker White). Auburn prioritized former Oklahoma starting quarterback Jackson Arnold because of how well the Tigers believe the former five-star recruit will fit in Freeze’s offense.

Arnold’s struggles as a sophomore — he was benched after four games before the Sooners returned to him as the starter for the final five — weren’t a huge issue for the Tigers given the circumstances: Oklahoma’s 6-6 finish was complicated by a decimated receiver depth chart, a struggling offensive line and a midseason offensive coordinator change.

“It was unfortunate for him this year because the situation he was in (at Oklahoma) wasn’t conducive to anyone having success,” Randall said. “Quarterbacks certainly can elevate players, but in that situation, you almost had to elevate the entire offense. It was a tough deal. … You had to really trust your evaluation and projection.”

Randall said it’s easy to get caught up in the negatives and what scouts perceive a player can’t do that turns them off: “I’d really rather focus on what he can do, what the strengths are, what they’re good at and trying to build those things up around him.”

When Auburn announced Arnold’s signing on Dec. 14, Freeze said in a video posted by the program that Arnold “understands the RPO system extremely well, throws the deep ball extremely well and I think he’s one that’s going to create a swagger around our offense.”

Auburn also signed former Stanford starter Ashton Daniels, whose skill set should also fit Freeze’s offense. Auburn has a blue-chip quarterback recruit on the way in Deuce Knight, but having another experienced option for 2025 alongside Arnold is invaluable. Daniels has played 1,242 career snaps, according to Pro Football Focus.

How Singleton fits

Singleton entered the portal on the first day it opened and immediately became one of its most coveted players. “He’s a seven-figure receiver,” an SEC personnel director said then. The former freshman All-American caught 56 passes for 754 yards in 2024.

“He has lethal speed,” Randall said. “You can tell that when their quarterback play was steady and they were able to get him the ball, he made plays. He gives us a real dynamite slot option.”

Singleton’s versatility is an asset. He played 426 snaps as an outside receiver and 213 in the slot in 2024, per PFF. He’s also a special teams contributor, returning 11 kicks for 241 yards this season.

Auburn’s Malcolm Simmons, who caught 40 passes for 451 yards as a true freshman this year, has similar versatility at receiver and as a returner. “Having two of those guys does a lot for you,” Randall said.

Add Wake Forest transfer Horatio Fields into the mix alongside returnee Cam Coleman, a budding star, and the Tigers’ 2025 receiving corps looks deep and talented.

A pair of connections helped Auburn’s courting of Singleton. Randall said Singleton was close with Taye Seymore, the Georgia Tech safety transfer who signed with the Tigers earlier this month, and goes “way back” with Auburn director of recruiting research and strategy Kenyatta Watson, an Atlanta-area recruiting ace who was Georgia Tech’s director of scouting in 2022 and whose son played with Singleton in 2023.

It’s great to be an Auburn Tiger!

🖊️ 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐄𝐃
Welcome home, @EricSingletonJ2 🦅 pic.twitter.com/yU7mE1znGZ

— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) December 23, 2024

More on the Tigers’ transfer class

• The experience that Chaplin, Murphy and Walker bring in the trenches excites the Tigers. Chaplin has started 25 games the last two years and has 1,447 career snaps. Murphy has logged 1,784 career snaps and 22 starts the past three seasons. Walker played sparingly before this season but carved out a role in 2024 and saw 486 snaps in 10 games for WKU. “When you’ve played a lot of football, there’s not a lot you haven’t seen before,” Randall said.

• Freeze regularly utilizes tight ends in the passing game. Rivaldo Fairweather, Auburn’s NFL Draft-bound tight end, was targeted 50 times this season, sixth-most among SEC tight ends, according to TruMedia. Maryland transfer Preston Howard, who has two years of eligibility, was brought in to help fill the need there.

Howard, a former high school quarterback, is very much a projection based on his athletic traits. He didn’t start playing tight end until he arrived at Maryland in 2022, and his production doesn’t jump off the page. But his speed, athleticism and vision at 6-4, 236 is intriguing. “He’s still got two years left to develop and be molded into a productive tight end,” Randall said. “I think they’ll do a good job of playing to his strengths as a pass catcher.”

• Miami (Ohio) cornerback Raion Strader was one of the top Group of 5 prospects in the portal and had more than a dozen offers before the Tigers signed him. His experience (1,515 snaps) and production (130 tackles, 31 pass breakups) in two seasons there appealed to many Power 4 programs. “He’s got the skill set to play inside or outside,” Randall said. “Versatility and production, those are things you’re willing to bet on 10 times out of 10.”

• Redmond, whom Freeze hired in January, has established a reputation as one of the top personnel heads in college football and earned Player Personnel Director of the Year honors from FootballScoop in 2022, while he was at LSU. Beyond evaluating and identifying talent, Randall credited Redmond’s people skills as a key part of his success, whether it’s working with the on-field coaching staff or conversing with agents during player acquisition.

“He does a phenomenal job managing and working with people and maintaining relationships with recruiting staff, coaches, the head coach, people outside the building,” Randall said. “His ability to work with a variety of people is what makes him successful.”

• When evaluating players, the grading scale Auburn’s recruiting staff used included a key question: “Can they help us win a conference championship?” After missing a bowl game, getting there in 2025 is a tall task. But as Auburn continues to add to its portal class, that’s the guiding light.

“That’s our goal,” Randall said. “Will these guys help us build a roster that can allow us to compete for a conference, and therefore a national, championship?”

(Photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)