It's the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. fans of your team, and you can even jump into the national chats and talk about whatever's happening across the league. Tap the everyday or club link in the show notes to learn more. Just when you thought the picture for Auburn's recruiting at quarterback was getting a little clear, other schools are like, no, we want him too. you are locked on auburn your daily podcast on the auburn tigers part of the locked on podcast network your team every day yes welcome on into locked on auburn your daily auburn tigers podcast i'm your host zach blackerbeam thank you so much for making locked on auburn your first listen every single day brian smith host of the portal that's locked on his recruiting transfer portal NIL show hanging out with us today. Brian, I've got 20 tabs open of 20 different guys and their profiles and all that. And we'll get to as many of them as we possibly can today. Receivers, defensive backs. Let's start with quarterback. Israel Abrams, the standout from the Chicago area quarterback. We've talked about him probably for over a month at this point. And we've seen some national writers put predictions in for him to be Auburn's quarterback in the 2027 class. And we've seen some other quarterbacks that Auburn was pursuing pivot to other guys. And now we're seeing Auburn look at other quarterbacks. And then Israel Abrams reports coming out four or five days ago that Miami is now involved in recruiting them. So kind of an interesting, you know, it's going to be fun to see the dominoes fall and where all these quarterbacks go, because we've talked about this timeline and this new calendar. They're probably going to start falling in the next month or two. I would imagine they'll start falling the next two to three weeks. Yeah. It's, it's very, very possible. He's got multiple visits set up with Florida state. Miami's involved. It's a late March visit. So you have to have he's on there. Auburn's on there. Kentucky's interesting. I mean, they've been throwing around some money. Oh, absolutely. Purdue is on his list, which is somewhat random. But if he goes to Purdue, that's not good for you. That would bother me. But he's got offers from pretty much everybody. No offense to Purdue, but they are terrible. So the point is still the same. He's your guy, but how long do you wait? This is the one spot every year. There's no fixing this. You're only going to take one guy. How long do you wait? Because if you lose on him, do you lose on the others while you wait. And I don't know if there's ever an answer to that. It's awful to be the coach. I don't have any advice. I talk to people about all time. They can't give me anything. It's more gut than anything else, like having conversations with the kid. Once Miami and schools like that get involved that have super heavy NIL packages, makes me a little nervous for anybody else. Well, it sounds like they've made, in a lot of these situations where maybe a school's trending for a little bit, they visit the other school and it's like, this is the offer and maybe it's a bit inflated and it's like, this offer is good for right now or that is it. And Auburn's been the benefit of that, you know, with some guys through the Hugh Freeze era, which maybe got us in some of the situation that we saw with the transfer portal in December. Regardless, it does work in getting the players to commit. And so at quarterback, you could argue that's more important there than at any other position. You and I talked about how big it would be for Israel Abrams to commit early. It changes how you talk to these receivers. It changes how you talk to the offensive linemen. It changes how you talk to the opposing defensive backs. It changes the conversation of, hey, come on and get in the boat. Also, that guy's the captain of the boat, and we believe that he can, you know, navigate whatever waters you want to. So Israel Abrams, the recruitment's tricky already. And, I mean, recruitment for any of these elite quarterbacks is going to be tricky. There's two other names that I don't think you and I have talked about, at least publicly on the show, maybe a little bit through the phone. But let's start with Jamison Roberts. In the 247 composite, he's a four-star, 12th-ranked player in the state of Alabama, 23rd-ranked quarterback in the class, according to the composite. But 6'2", 190 pounds is what they have the Sanford quarterback listed at. but you think this is a guy that could potentially make sense. I was with him last weekend at a seven-on-seven tournament held by Southern Express just outside of Birmingham, and he was a guy that could spin it. And he plays for Sierra Land, which, if you're not familiar with the state, is top five program in the state of Alabama very conservatively. They've got another quarterback in Texas. They've got Ryan Williams played there, et cetera. They've got all kinds of players. In his first year as a starter, he had about 5,000 total yards. I don't care who you play for. look yeah that's that's really good um i believe deshaun spencer was his receiver he's he's he's like this is this will make auburn fans happy he grew up an alabama fan but after visiting they kind of made him feel a little awkward he's an auburn fan now so that that probably is hilarious i love that like he told me that face to face i'm like wow but whatever um he's been recruited very heavily by Oklahoma. He's the only quarterback they've offered. So they've caught his attention. That makes sense, but he's, Georgia's close to offering him. Florida's involved. Like he's, he's really good and I don't know why, but he doesn't get much attention nationally. Yeah. Maybe, maybe could be a riser during his senior year. Yeah. Another quarterback that we have not talked about on the show, So Davin Davidson, Sarasota, Florida goes to Cardinal Mooney. I've seen a few articles in the Auburn world be written about him. Seems like Auburn is in on him for sure, which sounds like they got in on him late. They offered him on January 27th and then so did everyone else including the likes of Georgia Notre Dame I mean several you know P4 schools offering him when you know the weeks following you know, Auburn offering him, but enough, the offer right before that was South Florida. Take that for what it's worth. But this is a, I mean, this is a pretty large kid, six, six and a half, 215 pounds. when you think about you know what Alex Golish and Byron Brown have done this guy has a similar frame than what Byron did a few years ago one state last year Cardinal Mooney and he's been MVP as quarterback at two different camps in January everybody saw it and he got the offers off of that he's accurate he's pretty mobile he's not he's not Cam Newton but he can move yeah most of all he can spend it and he can throw the ball all over the lot so yeah he's got offers from pretty much everybody, and his spring visit list is extensive. I don't think he has a clue where he's going, but Auburn's going to be probably one of them that gets a visit. Yeah, so a few quarterbacks, obviously Israel Abrams, the headliner there, but Jamison Roberts, and then Davin Davidson, both worthy of attention for sure. Auburn did something kind of cool and unique for a five-star offensive lineman. Let's talk about that as well as some receivers that are worth noting next right here on Locked on Auburn. I'm Kalia Butler, host of Locked on Women's Basketball, and this is Mazda's Women's Basketball Snapshot, celebrating the work no highlight reel can ever capture. South Carolina rolled past Ole Miss 85-48 to clinch a share of the SEC regular season title and locked down the number one seed in the conference tournament. The Gamecocks extended their win streak over Ole Miss to 21 straight. UCLA dominated Wisconsin 80-60 to secure its first outright Big Ten regular season championship in program history. The Bruins improved to 27-1 overall and remain unbeaten in conference play. And No. 12 TCU stormed back from a 13-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat Iowa State 80-73. The Horned Frogs now sit alone atop the Big 12 standings and are one win away from clinching another regular season conference crown. These moments are earned off the clock, those long before the lights ever come on. 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It looks like they're at practice or doing workouts. And these players are saying, Hey, Ismail, come, come play here. Can't wait to play with you. Can't wait to see on the planes. Alex Gold, she's in it. A lot of the players are in it. And I just thought that was cool because, and all the other ones is just kind of like a generated edited video. This one seemed way more personal. They did something similar to this years ago when they were recruiting Cam Coleman. But I like this. I think that's super, super cool. I'm curious to see if it makes an impression or not. You're muted. Goat. Legend. There it is. I've seen a lot of schools do different things, but this one is a little bit more outside the box because players don't normally get involved with recruitments and it goes all over the internet. That stuff's usually just private. So good for Auburn for coming up with this. And the kid obviously liked it because he doesn't retweet it if he didn't. Some kids don't care about it. They found it. I think it was just a video sent to him and he just posted it, which is probably even better, I would think. Yeah, and he's a kid from East Texas. He's as good a player as a resident state of Texas for the class of 27. That kind of speaks for itself. and he has offers from pretty much every school in the country. I don't know how Auburn's getting involved with East Texas kids, but that's a whole other good news piece for the Tigers. Any kids you can get out of Texas as the bonus, yeah, that's a sign-me-up kind of thing if you're an Auburn Tigers fan. So I don't know if he'll play right tackle or guard, but I would take him in a second. He's got great film. Yeah, no, you get him on your team and then you figure it out. Absolutely. So that is Ismael Kamara, five-star from Gilmore, Texas. All right, let's pivot to some of these offensive linemen. We've talked about some of these guys before. Jameron Simmons, Tallahassee, Florida. Four-star guy across the board. Top 10 receiver caliber in this class. Really, really good player. Seems like Clemson might be an early lean. Seems like Florida State is in this one. But based off of readings, you know, all the stories that are out there, It doesn't seem like Auburn is backing off for Jamar and Simmons at all. Jamar is a kid I know well. He was actually in my car over 10 hours a couple of weekends ago as I drove him around the South to try to get him to a seven on seven tournament. He is elite as it gets. He's got an offer from every school. He just won different awards at a couple of different camps, rivals Miami Orlando Under Armour He was top three like at both camps It kind of speaks for itself and he makes guys look really dumb on the seven turf This tape is crazy Oh you ought to see the seven The stuff I get to see from five feet away is incredible. I'm sure. I'd love to see him in a dunk competition. He's about 5'11", but it doesn't matter. He's got insane hops. Do you tell them about how great it was when you lived at Auburn for a little bit, how great of a town it was? You spent a lot of time on that? No, I have not. I'll see him this weekend. I'll pass it along. Like, you know, tell him you lived in Auburn until a few months ago and it was like the best place you've ever lived. Be sure to drop that note, please. That'd be great. Zach is not biased, as you can tell. He's completely wide open. Yeah. Clemson and Florida State have had the most visits. Clemson just got in on him early. I don't know why. He literally lives six minutes from Florida State's campus. He's a Tallahassee kid, but he could go anywhere. Auburn's involved. Miami's involved. Florida's involved. And he's kind of all shucks about it. He knows that there's opportunities. He's going to take his trips. And Auburn, I think, is in March, if I remember right from talking to him. They're in the mix. I can't remember the date, but they're in the mix. We'll see. But Clemson is probably the team to beat because they've had the longest relationship with him in terms of, like, prioritizing. Makes sense. Both of them in Florida State haven't been real good here lately, especially Florida State. So the door is open as he would be a day one impact guy wherever he goes. Yeah. I mean, his high school stuff is insane. So Tay Walden, another receiver plays both ways. So he's listed as an athlete. I think he plays for the same seven on 17, right? He plays for your team there. So call your bill, Tennessee. Do y'all have him at wide receiver DB? We've, we've had two tournaments. first when he played receiver the second when he played db does he want to play both is that important to him it's a possibility i've talked to him about it tay is freaky he might be even freakier than jamarin athletically um he played db the last tournament at battle vegas nobody would throw at him because he's the 6-1 plus corner they see him and they throw to the other guy like he had like two passes thrown his direction so i don't even know how good he is at it but he's a track kid, Oregon and LSU desperately want him. So that kind of puts things in perspective. He can go to any school he wants to. He's got them all real quiet kid. Lives just outside of Memphis. Auburn's a school that he mentions quite a bit when I talked to him. I don't, he doesn't know what he wants to do for sure, but he's leaning corner. But if you tell him he can play receiver two, it's not going to hurt you. And he's a track kid. He's got all the measurable. So his recruitment will probably drag out for a while. He's overwhelmed at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. So Jamar and Williams or Jamar and Simmons and then Tay Walden, who two guys to keep some tabs on there. Have you heard any anything about Carlos May? I mean, it was about a week ago where we kind of saw a few predictions go. Carlos May to Auburn in state, you know, Birmingham kid goes to Ramsey top, uh, two, four, seven has him as the sixth best player in the state of Alabama, big body, big frame. I had, I mean, we don't know when the timing is going to be when, when these guys commit, but it definitely seems like Auburn is in the lead still here. This is a rather unique recruitment. I was reading actually the Auburn 24 seven site. They were talking about it like he's had national teams come at him and it's coming waves. Ohio State, Notre Dame, Alabama, Auburn, like it's a major deal. And I wonder if he's a little bit like Tay. He's a little overwhelmed because like this just really started picking up weight last year. And his offer list now is through the roof. So it may drag out a while because I'm sure the NIL is a part of it as well. So I imagine he'll probably go through spring before he makes a whole bunch of decisions to even narrow it down. I'm not even sure which schools will be his OVs. His list is that long. So Auburn's the leader, but I don't know what the timeline really is. Yeah. He may make a decision soon. Well done. Sorry. Okay. Let's talk about a few defensive backs in just a moment. Right here on Locked on Auburn. Today's show brought to you by our friends at Game Time. It doesn't matter what sport or what type of event it is you're looking for. Game Time has you covered. And, I mean, hopefully we're able to use the Game Time app to buy tickets all over the country if Auburn can make the tournament. They've got to close out here. 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You can find your new favorite flavor of five-hour energy shots available at fivehourenergy.com or on Amazon. Final few minutes of today's edition of Locked On. Auburn, Brian Smith, host of The Portal, hanging out with us. Let's pivot to defensive back, and these are some really good players. Jaden, help me out here. Help me out here with Jaden's full name, please. apparatio apparatio jayden apparatio bailey the four-star safety with uh i mean his offer list you sent me a screenshot of his offer list and like i think you had to zoom out i did to get it all in the screenshot so it seems like auburn has kind of broken in as of late this staff is playing from behind they are recruiting from behind you and i talked about that a little bit last week They're trying to kind of, you know, rush a little bit of these relationships just because they're a new spot. And some of these kids wouldn talk to them when they in South Florida but now they talk to another they at Auburn And I think it like it a lot of this right Like getting into these guys that are still talking to you know eight to 10 schools and just kind of hoping you can make make an impression, whether it's with a strong offer, whether it's, you know, relationships, just, just clicking or fit, just kind of being, you know, appealing to them. There's a million reasons why a kid would want to pick a certain school, But Jaden is a heck of a player. No question about it. He is, from what I've heard, Kirby's number one guy. That's really all he needs. Well, I can't help you with that part. But it's a good sign that he can play is all I'm saying. Sure. But he lives in the greater Montgomery area. He's a player that's been on the board for everybody. Yeah, it goes to Prattville. Yeah, it's a great program. And he's able to play safety or he can play some nickel. like he's basically this class is Eric Winters in terms of style and athleticism and that is not a bad thing no it's not no it's not imagine that since he lives an hour away he'll be able to make it to campus pretty easy the question is where do they sit now because of what you said about the relationship part I don't know him but I would imagine that he has as many opportunities to make it all the way to you know whatever school he wants he can wait as long as he wants So this could drag out a while, which probably benefits are. Yeah. All right. Another one, Joshua Dobson, five-star defensive back. 247 has him listed as a corner. He is. Number two corner in the country, according to 247. Seems like Auburn is at least talking to him. Seems like DVD, DeMarcus Van Dyke, seems like they have a relationship. I think he was recruiting him when he was involved at Miami. And so I think that relationship kind of already stands. So we'll see how strong that can be down the stretch here. But this guy can ball. He is my number one pick in terms of all-around corner in this class, playing man or zone. Saw him last summer at Future 50, and it was a loaded group. John Meredith and some other – I think Meredith is number one player by 24-7. Give me either one. I don't care. Yeah, right. He's long. He's fast. Miami's prioritizing him. Notre Dame went after him hard. Auburn, you name it, they've offered. He's been to campus already. I remember we talked about him about a month or so ago. If they can get him back again this spring, it would up their chances considerably. But the fact that he's already been to Auburn for a hoops game shows that he's truly interested. This is a come in and play right away. Jay Crawford kind of level player. Yeah, would love Joshua Dobson being part of the 2027 class. All right, last guy we'll talk about today, unless you throw some more out here. Junior James, safety from Thompson, four-star in the 247 composite. Obviously, Thompson, a program that you and I respect a ton. And one of the, I don't know if you heard it or read it somewhere, but one of the logic for recruiting him that you told me right before we clicked record, I thought was hilarious and also a very good point. Yeah, I was reading the 24-7 Auburn page. They're like, they've signed a safety from there three years in a row. Why not four? Yeah, why not? They've all worked out so far. So, yeah, let's just continue doing that, please. Thank you. By the way, the other safety is elite, too, and he could end up at all. It's their entire secondary every year. Yeah, you had me sold at Thompson. Great. Yeah, I'm down. Let's try it. Let's see what happens. he played the corner the last weekend when i was there and i thought he was a corner he's 6-3 like he's very fluid so he can play a lot of spots yeah yeah still uh i mean it still seems like golish is working his tail off you're seeing you're seeing him at all these events and you gotta assume when they're going to these events that he's recruiting or like visiting the local kids in that area as well um doesn't seem like the guy slept at all but that's that's what it takes that's what it takes yeah the uh the the lift is it's been taken it's no longer the dead period we're into the period where they can go out and do stuff a little bit it kind of goes back and forth the next couple weeks will be important for auburn especially because of what you said earlier hey some of these kids wouldn't talk to them at usf no offense to the bulls but it's g6 conference moniker on your shirt changes the ball game i have no idea how you make up that time you just do the best you can so every visit for auburn is probably a little more important than it is for like kirby like everybody knows where you say kirby you don't have to say the score everybody knows who you're talking about right goal is just the new guy on the block so him getting out being active which by the way shout out to you freeze the one thing he was great at was recruiting he's really good at it at least early on yeah he was and now go wish i mean he's been a recruiting coordinator so i'm curious to see what he can do this year especially in state they're battling to get several kids that Alabama wants and this this is fun for me to cover I enjoy this very yeah I mean every stop of the way as you know his ascension to being a head coach whatever level or whatever conference he was at where he was at was the best at recruiting amongst its peers amongst its conference so we'll see I mean this is as big as it gets. If you can recruit against your peers at this level, you can recruit against anybody. So we'll see what happens with Alex Gullish, and we'll see if any of the guys we talked about today end up in Auburn's class. I certainly, certainly, certainly hope that is the case. Brian Smith, how can people check out everything you've got going on? Locked on the portal, everything that you do to get to Locked on Auburn, whether it's YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, whatever. Same deal with Locked on the Portal. Doing a lot of quarterback profiles. I actually did one, Byron Brown, the other day. It's a lot of fun. I need to go watch it. Yeah, yeah. It is up. So it was about a week ago. No, Sunday. Sunday, so not quite a week. Lots of stuff going on in the Portal Podcast. Please like the video. Please subscribe. If you're tuned in on audio, please subscribe and leave us a review. It helps the show out of time. We'll see you next time. This has been Locked on Auburn. 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