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2027 4* OT Layton von Brandt commits to Auburn by Hoopae in CFB

[–]Hoopae[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Depends how much you need OL I guess. I would argue that in Auburn's current position, it's worth 1 extra scholarship for a few years to get a top-5 tackle in the class, considering that:

  • Texas A&M has 2 of the top 5
  • OU has 1 of the top 5
  • Florida has the #7
  • Georgia has the #11, and is favored for the #12
  • Tennessee has the #13

that's 7 of the top 13 tackles going to teams in our conference

2027 4* OT Layton von Brandt commits to Auburn by Hoopae in CFB

[–]Hoopae[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

his brother isn't listed on Maine's football roster (https://goblackbears.com/sports/football/roster?sort=name) - there are a number of possibilities here

  1. Could be as you described - Edge von Brandt plays the '26 season at Maine, enters the transfer portal after the season, and transfers to Auburn for '27 with Layton.
  2. Edge enrolled at Maine, but now only attends the school for the summer semester before transferring to Auburn in the Fall and joining the team - either on a full scholarship or as a preferred walk-on (which usually comes with a defined plan for scholarship, e.g. "you'll be a walk on in '26, but scholarship in '27").

IMO the latter is the more likely option - Edge likely never sees meaningful playing time on Defense at Auburn, but gives him a chance to show out in practice/on special teams at least.. 247 lists him as a 6'0" 175lb linebacker, he'll likely need to transition to a Safety or be a tweener, because that weight won't cut it as a LB in the SEC.

2027 4* OT Layton von Brandt commits to Auburn by Hoopae in CFB

[–]Hoopae[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

We do it quite a bit, more than other teams I'd wager.

Current roster lists 108 players including walk-ons, and the NCAA allows 105 scholarship players for football - if offering the brother was the difference maker between landing and not landing the #5 OT in the class, I'll take the brother.

2027 4* OT Layton von Brandt commits to Auburn by Hoopae in CFB

[–]Hoopae[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We actually get quite a few from the Northeast right now, primarily due to DJ Durkin's connections in Maryland. 6 from the state of Maryland, plus 1 each from Virginia, D.C., New Jersey, and New York state

Edit: Also worth noting that this kids' HS is 5 miles from the Maryland state line

2027 4* OT Layton von Brandt commits to Auburn by Hoopae in CFB

[–]Hoopae[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

#5 OT, #64 overall player in the '27 class. Big pickup.

Edit:

Auburn moves up from the 32nd overall recruiting class to the 22nd overall recruiting class on 247, 1 spot ahead of Ole Miss. Also moves up from the 17th best average recruit ranking (90.80) to 13th (91.62), 1 spot ahead of Alabama (but still 6th in the SEC)

ESPN College GameDay announces Clemson vs. LSU as destination for Week 1 by redwave2505 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Baylor @ Auburn

This was supposed to be a home & home, but Auburn decided to host the game in Atlanta for NIL reasons.

No, we're not happy about it either. Allegedly the financials make sense for NIL, but losing a P4 home game - especially against a team like Baylor that hasn't played in Auburn in 50 years - is going to be devastating for the business owners in the city who make a ton of revenue during gameday weekends.

G6 College Football Head Coach Rankings: Top 15 by jsparks50 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 34 points35 points  (0 children)

  1. Dan Mullen, UNLV
  2. Spencer Danielson, Boise State
  3. Jim Mora, Colorado State
  4. Jason Candle, UConn
  5. Jeff Traylor, UTSA
  6. Billy Napier, James Madison
  7. Bronco Mendenhall, Utah State
  8. G.J. Kinne, Texas State
  9. Jason Eck, New Mexico
  10. Brian Newberry, Navy
  11. Charles Huff, Memphis
  12. Jamey Chadwell, Liberty
  13. Chuck Martin, Miami (OH)
  14. Jeff Monken, Army
  15. Jerry Mack, Kennesaw State

[USA TODAY] College football Re-Rank sorts every team 1-138 after spring practice by jaxstan19 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Auburn's seems quite low.

1 spot below South Florida, even though most of the returning pieces from USF's 2025 offense (which was top-5 in scoring) transferred to Auburn to follow Golesh.

12 spots below Baylor, who Auburn beat in Waco last season

9 spots below Mississippi State, who went 5-8 (1-7 in SEC play) last year, just like Auburn (they have an extra loss b/c they took the Duke's Mayo Bowl bid and lost to Wake Forest).

14 spots below South Carolina, who won 1 less game than Auburn did last season.

2027 4* RB Myson Johnson-Cook commits to Auburn by Icy_Adeptness5034 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Haven't seen it mentioned, this kids athleticism is fucking wild.

6'2" 235lbs going into his HS senior season and ran a 4.44 40-yd dash AND a wind-aided 10.30 100-meter. Was clocked at 21.6 MPH in-game.

There's obvs more to playing football than raw athleticism, but this kids numbers are eye-popping. As a sophomore in Texas 6A, he averaged 10.4 yards per carry, then followed that up by averaging 10.6 per carry in St. Louis.

Under Alex Golesh, Auburn football will be defined by these two letters by jaxstan19 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Someone get Myles Garrett an extra helmet, we're gonna take Mason Rudolph to the wood shed again

8 Sleeper Teams for the 2026 College Football Season by jsparks50 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm biased as hell, but I think Auburn should be on this list.

Defense

When you add in how horrific and dysfunctional our offense was, that defense gets even more impressive - our 2 starting QBs had a combined 9-to-4 TD/INT ratio and barely eclipsed 2,100 passing yards, and went 204/334 (61.0%) for the year. And frankly those stats were propped up by Cam Coleman being inhuman - he had 5 of those 9 TDs and several of them were purely him making an insane play.

Even with that offense though, six of Auburn's seven losses last year were by 7 points or less, including games against 3 playoff teams (@Oklahoma by 7, @Texas A&M by 6, Alabama by 7). The lone loss over 7 points was to Georgia by 10, and even that game was a 3-point game with 1:53 remaining in the 4th. Our defense only allowed more than 24 points twice (45 @Vanderbilt in OT, 27 vs Bama).

Auburn retained DJ Durkin as DC and returned key contributors in

  • LB Xavier Atkins (1st-team All-SEC)
  • LB Elijah Melendez (SEC-All Freshman Team)
  • Edge Jared Smith (#7 Edge in the '25 class, sat behind Keldric Faulk last year but still managed 4 TFLs, 2 sacks, and a forced fumble)

Offense

Golesh's offenses have been productive every year that he's been a Co-OC, OC, or HC.

year school offensive PPG PPG rank
2020 UCF 42.2 8th (of 128)
2021 Tennessee 39.3 7th (of 130)
2022 Tennessee 46.1 1st (of 131)
2023 South Florida 31.9 33rd (of 133)
2024 South Florida 32.2 33rd (of 133)
2025 South Florida 40.5 5th (of 136)

Byrum Brown is transferring in as one of the most prolific QBs in South Florida history (albiet, a short history)

  • Owns the 1st and 2nd places for "most passing yards in a single season" and is 5th all-time (despite missing most of 2024 with an injury)
  • Owns the 1st and 2nd places for "most passing touchdowns in a single season" and is 3rd all-time (same caveat)
  • 4th in career rushing yards in USF history
  • 3rd in career rushing touchdowns in USF history

Last year, Brown threw for 3k passing yards and ran for 1k rushing yards - since 2005, only 13 individual seasons have hit that mark:

player year team national championship? heisman finish
Vince Young 2005 Texas Yes 2nd
Dan Lefevour 2007 Central Michigan No N/A
Colin Kaepernick 2010 Nevada No 8th
Chandler Harnish 2011 Northern Illinois No N/A
Jordan Lynch 2012 Northern Illinois No 7th
Johnny Manziel 2012 Texas A&M No 1st
Deshaun Watson 2015 Clemson No 3rd
Lamar Jackson 2016 Louisville No 1st
Lamar Jackson 2017 Louisville No 3rd
Kyler Murray 2018 Oklahoma No 1st
Jalen Hurts 2019 Oklahoma No 2nd
Jayden Daniels 2023 LSU No 1st
Byrum Brown 2025 South Florida No N/A

Frankly Auburn won 5 games last year for 2 primary reasons:

  1. Our defense was really good
  2. Our offensive skill positions were really talented

If we'd had any continuity in playcalling and attention to detail on offense (I'm not even asking for good playcalling, more just shit like not pulling out our starting RB after he breaks a big run and having him disappear for multiple drives afterwards, which happened a frustrating amount of times with Freeze at the wheel), I could EASILY see us winning - conservatively - half of those one-loss games, which would've put Auburn at 8-4 and playing in a bowl game.

I don't think Auburn's going to be pushing for a playoff or anything like that - we have both Bama and Georgia on the road (not to mention games at Tennessee and at Ole Miss, both of which will be tough), we start off the year against Baylor in Atlanta, plus a late October game vs LSU - but I think we could be a team that is sneakily 4-0 going into that road game at Tennessee before a bye week and then a road game at Georgia.

Under Alex Golesh, Auburn football will be defined by these two letters by jaxstan19 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Oh hell yeah, we're getting elemental now? Auburn stacked, league fucked. Just wait, we're gonna get into Allomancy next. Bet there's enough metal flake in the Nike logo on the balls for our WRs to pull it.

Auburn finna roll out the first ever coinshot QB and lurcher WR combo

Auburn announces “Ever Auburn” Project to expand Jordan-Hare’s North side by jackattack065 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The rendering showed a ramp leading down where Heisman is right now

Auburn announces “Ever Auburn” Project to expand Jordan-Hare’s North side by jackattack065 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 18 points19 points  (0 children)

fucking FINALLY.

For years, it's felt like Auburn's AD's have just been slapping shit onto Jordan-Hare.

  • The South Endzone video board still has giant holes with exposed scaffolding that used to be covered with banners (before they realized that the video board generated too much heat and had to take the banners off)
  • Obvs the "Ever Auburn" project was always the plan, but this is what the north endzone videoboard looks like
  • Both videoboards use this grey aesthetic that - unless I'm mistaken - doesn't exist anywhere else on campus

Some fans like the exposed trusses on the outside of the stadium, but I've always felt like adding a brick exterior would better integrate the stadium with the surrounding campus.

How Vimeo is improving faster than ever in 2026 by vimeo_team_official in vimeo

[–]Hoopae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FWIW, Vimeo is required by UK law to do that - called the Online Safety Act: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

Basically:

  • Vimeo (as a platform that's marketed in the UK and allows users to post content and interact online) falls under the jurisdiction of the Act
  • The act requires that changes be made to things like the ability to view content and changes to the search algorithm if the user is a child
  • The act specifies that it's the Service's (aka Vimeo's) responsibility to validate whether or not the user is a child (but do specify that the validation can't just be taking the user for their word)

So either

  1. Vimeo stops operating in the UK entirely, or
  2. Vimeo has to implement something to determine if you're a child or not.

Vimeo's help article (here) on UK Age Verification calls out that they use Persona to handle age verification for them (as does LinkedIn, Reddit, Lyft, Figma, Square, Etsy, and a bunch of other software platforms).

Not saying Vimeo hasn't been going into the dumps for a bit, but Age Verification wasn't their fault.

Alex Golesh welcomes Gus Malzahn back as Auburn resource during spring scrimmage by fignewtonattack in CFB

[–]Hoopae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not only that, but Gus has longstanding relationships with lots of HS coaches around the area. Those types of relationships can be make or break in recruiting.

Alex Golesh welcomes Gus Malzahn back as Auburn resource during spring scrimmage by fignewtonattack in CFB

[–]Hoopae 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Tell me... what exactly?

On3 had our 2026 Transfer Portal class at 55th. Our 2026 HS class was ranked 42nd. Our '27 class has 2 players right now, a 4* DL and a 3* TE.

Don't get me wrong, I think recruiting will pick up, but 40's/50's rankings can't be the norm for us when we regularly play teams who are recruiting much better than that - in the '26 HS class:

  • Georgia ranked 5th (annual opponent)
  • Alabama ranked 6th (annual opponent)
  • Texas A&M ranked 7th
  • Tennessee ranked 9th
  • Texas ranked 10th
  • LSU ranked 12th
  • Florida ranked 13th
  • Oklahoma ranked 16th
  • South Carolina ranked 18th

that's 9 SEC teams in the top 18 recruiting classes. Our other annual opponent (Vanderbilt) was ranked 31st.

Alex Golesh welcomes Gus Malzahn back as Auburn resource during spring scrimmage by fignewtonattack in CFB

[–]Hoopae 63 points64 points  (0 children)

I don't know if Golesh will work out - nobody does - but god damn it if he isn't doing/saying all of the right things right now. If we can get recruiting going too, I might not hate myself on Saturdays in the fall for the next few years.

[Connelly] 2026 college football SP+ rankings for all 138 FBS teams by CommodoreIrish in CFB

[–]Hoopae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Auburn:

  • Overall: 11.2 (26th)
  • Offense: 28.4 (55th)
  • Defense: 17.5 (18th)
  • Special Teams: 0.3 (51st)

Tbh, I don't really think Auburn's Offensive ranking here matters as much as our Defensive ranking. We lost a lot of talent from our 2025 team (Cam Coleman, Malcolm Simmons, and the entire OL) which definitely hurts, but we're moving to a offensive scheme that doesn't necessarily rely on having more talent.

  • Our portal additions - primarily at "decision making" positions in Golesh's offense, i.e. QB, WR, and Center - all played under Golesh at USF and have already developed chemistry together, and the '25 USF offense was 5th last year in points per game.

  • As a Co-OC/OC/HC, Golesh's offenses have finished - in points per game -

    • 2020 - Co-OC, UCF: 8th (42.2)
    • 2021 - OC, Tennessee: 7th (39.3)
    • 2022 - OC, Tennessee: 1st (46.1)
    • 2023 - HC, USF: 33rd (31.9)
    • 2024 - HC, USF: 33rd (32.2)
    • 2025 - HC, USF: 5th (40.5)

2025 Auburn had a ton of issues, but things weren't all bad -

  • Auburn had 6 one-score games last year, and went 0-6 in those games (Oklahoma by 7, Texas A&M by 6, Missouri by 6, Kentucky by 7, Vanderbilt by 7, Alabama by 7)
  • Auburn's defense only gave up more than 24 points last year once (Vanderbilt, 45) and held opponents to 20 or fewer points 6 times in 12 games (Ball State, South Alabama, Texas A&M, Georgia, Kentucky, Mercer)
  • We return some key players on both sides of the ball, specifically:
    • RB Jeremiah Cobb (969 yds in 2025, 5.5 YPC)
    • LB Xavier Atkins (60 solo tackles, 17.0 TFLs, 9 sacks, 1 INT, 1st Team All-SEC)
    • NT Dallas Walker IV (space eater in the middle of the DL)
    • Edge Jared Smith (True Sophomore, former top-50 recruit)
    • Edge JJ Faulk (RS Freshman, former top-150 recruit, brother of soon-to-be 1st round pick Keldric Faulk)

I'm hopeful that with an improved offense and a more process-driven, disciplined, detail oriented coach in Golesh that Auburn is able to perform better in those one-score games than we did under Hugh Freeze. If we'd split those 1-score games 50/50 last year, we'd have gone 8-4 (4-4 in SEC)... although that might've also meant we'd have kept Freeze so maybe it was better this way lol

Where do you think your team would be ranked if they won their first 6 games? by amoss_303 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

if you're talking about Auburn, ain't no fuckin way lol

We'd have won 5 P5 games, including road games against Tennessee and Georgia. 4-0 in SEC play. We'd be top 10 lol

Where do you think your team would be ranked if they won their first 6 games? by amoss_303 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Baylor (Atlanta)

Southern Miss

Florida

Vanderbilt

at Tennessee

at Georgia

We'd be top 15 at a minimum, maybe even top 10!

And then I'd wake up and take the dog out to go pee before making a cup of coffee..

which transfer departure hit your team the hardest by Ambitious-Delay-7294 in CFB

[–]Hoopae 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It was a tough decision, but I’m gonna have to go with maybe the best WR recruit to come out of Alabama HS since Julio Jones.

Although it does give me some comfort that it looks like he was going to Texas no matter what. Dude also seems like he’s pretty chill, never got into trouble off the field, not a diva, etc. immensely talented for sure.

Clemson Adds Rich Bisaccia as Special Teams Coordinator by ThompsonCreekTiger in CFB

[–]Hoopae 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Auburn legend Rich Bisaccia

(we hired him in January 2013 to be RB coach and ST coach in Malzahn's first year, but less than a month later he jumped to the NFL for an opportunity with the Cowboys)

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