Auburn Daily

Auburn Tigers Add 5-Star Pass Rusher to Recruiting Class

The Auburn Tigers have picked up another big commitment on the defensive line by adding the nation's No. 2 edge rusher in the country.

Harrison Smajovits

Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze has been stacking dominant pass rushers in the last several recruiting classes.
Auburn Tigers head coach Hugh Freeze has been stacking dominant pass rushers in the last several recruiting classes. / Mickey Welsh / Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK
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Five-star edge recruit Jared Smith announced his commitment to the Auburn Tigers on Saturday. The 2025 recruit has been projected to go to Auburn for quite some time but has now made it official. 

He took a minute to say a few words and proceeded to dawn the Auburn cap laid out on the table in front of him. 

"War Damn Eagle. We're trying to get the best recruiting class in the country. We're trying to build this class — the best class in the history of Auburn,” Smith said. 

Smith is the ranked the No. 19 prospect in the country regardless of position on 247 Sports and is the second-ranked player at both his position from Alabama. 

We did have other signs that this commitment was likely going Auburn’s way. One was the fact that he showed up to Big Cat Weekend in an Auburn-themed Telsa Cybertruck. You don’t go to that extra effort if you aren’t at least extremely interested in a program. 

Another was when fellow five-star Auburn commit Malik Autry posted another fat Batman on his X account. He posts it when Auburn is about to land a recruit. 

Is it a little odd? Sure, but to his credit, it’s unique - and kind of funny. 

Auburn has now seen eight of the top 10 players from the state have committed to Auburn. The other two have committed to Ohio State. The icing on the cake: None have gone to rival Alabama. 

This total in the top 10 doubled the number of in-state commits they locked down the previous year. 

Freeze has been especially adept at signing pass rushers since he arrived at Auburn. Freeze had a recruiting coup his first few months on the job when he signed Keldric Faulk in the Class of 2023.

Amarius Williams and Jamonta Walker were blue-chip edges last year, and he's blowing it out of the water this year with Autry, Smith, and Jakaleb Faulk.

There are a few factors to this shift. One is the obvious retirement of Alabama head coach Nick Saban. Another is that more top recruits are on defense, and Auburn has shown what they can do on defense the last few seasons. 

These recruits, a good majority of them blue chips, like what they see coming together on The Plains. To the credit of head coach Hugh Freeze, he’s landing the big recruits and has gotten Auburn into the top five for the 2025 recruiting class.  

Freeze is setting Auburn up to have one of the best defenses in the SEC should they be able to hang on to these recruits.

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Harrison Smajovits

HARRISON SMAJOVITS

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