Auburn Tigers Linebackers have a Wealth of Experience and Talent

The Auburn Tigers linebackers might be the deepest unit of the team including All-SEC selection Eugene Asante.

Auburn Tigers linebacker Eugene Asante was voted All-SEC at media days. / Maria Lysaker-USA TODAY Sports

New Auburn Tigers defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin is taking over coaching the linebackers, while Josh Aldridge moves from linebackers to coaching the Buck position. Durkin shouldn’t be hampered by inexperience at linebacker, or anywhere else on the defense, but it’ll be a quick learning curve for everyone to learn and speak the same verbiage.

The Linebackers:

Austin Keys, Sr., 6-2, 247, Returning Starter
Eugene Asante, Sr., 6-1, 219, Returning Starter
Robert Woodyard Jr., So., 6-0, 220, Returning Backup
Dorian Mausi Jr., Sr., 6-1, 234, Transfer from Duke, January Enrollee
Fa’Najae Gotay, Sr., 6-0, 226, Transfer from Maryland, Summer Enrollee
Demarcus Riddick, TFr., 6-2, 217, January Enrollee
D.J. Barber, TFr., 5-11, 226, January Enrollee

Departures: Larry Nixon III exhausted eligibility, Cam Riley transferred to Florida State, Wesley Steiner transferred to Washington State

Of the seven scholarship linebackers, four of them are entering their fifth, sixth, or seventh year of playing college football.

Eugene Asante had a 2023 season worthy of moving onto the NFL, but he’s back at Auburn and hoping to climb higher up the draft boards. He played three years at North Carolina, transferred to Auburn and was on the scout team under the previous staff. Last year he had 86 tackles, 35 tackles more than the next highest Auburn defender. He had 8.5 tackles for a loss and five sacks to complement his 86 total stops. He was dominant at times during the season, showed to be perhaps the top pass rusher on the team, and was a wrecking ball when called on to blitz.

Asante is likely to line up next to middle linebacker Austin Keys as the two starters beginning preseason camp. Keys started eight games last year, was sidelined during the middle of the season with a hand injury, and came back to finish with 30 tackles. He’s up to 6-2, 247 heading into his senior season.

The battle for the rest of the linebacker snaps should be an interesting development over the next several weeks. The most likely candidates are a pair of senior transfers and an up and coming star freshman linebacker. Graduate transfer Dorian Mausi Jr. is likely to get plenty of snaps this season at Auburn after being a fixture in the lineup the last four years at Duke. He has 193 career tackles, 8.5 for a loss.

This summer Auburn added another graduate transfer from the ACC, Maryland’s Fa’Najae Gotay, whose career has been the the perfect storm of extending college eligibility. It began in 2018, and he’s an extremely rare case of playing football across seven different seasons.

He played in four games in 2018 and was redshirted. Gotay played nine games in his freshman season in 2019, then another four games during the 2020 COVID season that didn’t count toward players’ eligibility. In 2021 he played in one game, was injured, and took a medical redshirt. Gotay then played his sophomore season in his fifth year, appearing in 11 games. His junior season was in 2023, appearing in all 13 games.

Asante has played in 53 career games, Mausi 44, Gotay 42, and Keys 38.

Robert Woodyard was a then rare recruiting win for Auburn over Alabama during the 2022 cycle, but injuries have held him back and we’ve yet to see what he can do on the field. He’s played sparingly in his two years, but looking to break through this fall.

The aforementioned freshman linebacker is Demarcus Riddick. Hugh Freeze and staff got a late jump on recruiting the 2024 class, and at one point Cam Coleman was committed to Texas A&M, Amaris Williams and Jamonta Waller to Florida, Perry Thompson to Alabama, and Riddick to Florida. Riddick was the first domino to fall with his commitment to Auburn last July.

He has the size and speed to play multiple spots for the defense this year – will linebacker in a base look, safety in short-yardage package, mike linebacker on passing downs. He was a four-star and the 63rd-rated player coming out of Chilton County (Clanton, Ala.) High School.

Fellow freshman D.J. Barber was a key piece to Clay-Chalkville’s 7A State Championship last year, and he’ll be looking for ways to get onto the field this year as a freshman.

Freeze and the Auburn staff have done a good job of building depth and talent at various positions across the team, and the linebackers epitomize that mantra.