Roster construction in college football has changed dramatically over the past five years.

While high school recruiting is still important, success in the transfer portal is how more and more programs are building successful and deep rosters, oftentimes as a way to supplement their high school signing classes.

Half of the 2024 College Football Playoff field signed 10 or more transfers the previous offseason. For some, the portal is a primary tool to put a team together. Take Indiana for example, who signed 31 transfers prior to the 2024 season in which the Hoosiers made the playoff.

For others, it’s simply a tool to add a small handful of talented, ready-made starters to supplement a few positions of need.

Since Hugh Freeze was hired as Auburn’s head coach after the 2022 season, the Tigers have used the portal as an important tool to build out the roster. The program has signed 55 players out of the portal since Freeze was hired, averaging 18.3 portal additions per offseason.

Having a heavy transfer class isn’t unusual after a coaching change. The Tigers’ biggest class (20 players) came in Freeze’s first offseason at Auburn. However, after lowering that number to 16 last offseason, Auburn has signed 19 players from the portal since the 2024 season ended, an uptick despite Freeze now being on his third high school signing class.

Freeze continues to preach Auburn’s mission to build the program through the high school ranks, but it’s clear — for now — that the portal is still important.

“I said I wanted to build it primarily through the high school ranks. That had to be rethought a little bit, but not as much as I thought,” Freeze said on signing day in December.

Much of that is due to the other side of the transfer portal: losing players. Auburn lost 23 scholarship players to the transfer portal this offseason. As long as players leave, there will always be a need to sign transfers as replacements.

The more compelling story, though, is Auburn’s varying success with its transfers since Freeze’s arrival. Some positions have leaned heavy on transfers the past two seasons, but others have seen impressive performances from young players and some disappointment from the transfers brought in.

Other spots, like quarterback, have been a little more complicated.

Payton Thorne arrived at Auburn from Michigan State ahead of Freeze’s first season in 2023 and eventually beat out returning signal caller Robby Ashford for the starting job. Thorne went on to account for 85% of Auburn’s passing yards for the next two seasons, but his tenure as Auburn’s starting quarterback is viewed as mediocre by some and disastrous by others.

With Thorne graduating and Auburn’s three homegrown quarterbacks behind him transferring, the Tigers will likely trot out another transfer quarterback in 2025, with former Oklahoma signal caller Jackson Arnold currently the front runner.

Some see Arnold as a risky solution to the hole left at quarterback. Despite starting at another Southeastern Conference program before coming to Auburn, he’s less proven in college than Thorne was before coming to Auburn and had an up and down year during his one season as a starting quarterback at Oklahoma.

How Arnold pans out could be part of what defines Freeze’s time at Auburn, but Arnold’s decorated high school career and less than ideal circumstances at Oklahoma give the move as much upside as it has risk.

The most interesting position to look at when evaluating Freeze’s transfer success is wide receiver. Arguably the most successful transfer at any position signed by Freeze was former Penn State receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith, but the other six receivers signed out of the portal over the last two years have combined for 47 catches and 647 yards, both lower than Lamber-Smith’s 2024 totals.

While Auburn struck gold in signing Lambert-Smith, the overall hit rate on receiver transfers has been low.

The offensive line has seen success with transfers such as Gunner Britton, Avery Jones and Dillon Wade, but didn’t get much out of Jaden Muskrat, Ronan Chambers, Percy Lewis or Dylan Senda, although Senda is still with the program, but not expected to start in 2025.

Tight end is arguably where Auburn has been best in the portal on offense, despite only adding two tight end transfers in Freeze’s first two offseasons.

One of them was FIU transfer Rivaldo Fairweather, who was Auburn’s leading receiver in 2023 and a dynamic, albeit quieter, piece of Auburn’s passing offense in 2024. The other was Rico Walker, who recently transferred away from Auburn after never really creating a role for himself in 2024.

When analyzing production and overall hit rate, Auburn has had more success with its defensive transfers under Freeze than on offense. Of the five Auburn players with the most defensive snaps in 2024, three arrived on the Plains via the transfer portal during Freeze’s tenure.

No position has had more success with transfers than linebacker, with six of Auburn’s eight transfers in the last two seasons becoming either starters or regular contributors. The Tigers’ top three leading tacklers in 2024 were signed by Freeze out of the portal, with two — Jalen McLeod and Dorian Mausi Jr. — being linebackers.

Success with transfers on the defensive line has been mixed. Players such as Justin Rogers, Lawrence Johnson and Philip Blidi have contributed, but Auburn’s best defensive linemen have either been homegrown or transferred in before Freeze’s arrival. The most prominent examples are Marcus Harris (transferred in under Bryan Harsin) and Keldric Faulk (signed as a freshman in Freeze’s first class).

Auburn’s secondary under Freeze has largely been made up of homegrown players, but Texas transfer safety Jerrin Thompson led the entire team in snaps last season.

With all that said, what’s the verdict on Auburn’s transfer success? Here are a few numbers to break things down:

• Of the 18 defensive transfers in Freeze’s first two seasons, 10 played 250 or more snaps in at least one season, McLeod and Austin Keys did it in both.
• Transfers signed by Freeze have accounted for 35% of Auburn’s receptions and 28% of Auburn’s receiving yards over the past two seasons.
• Transfers signed by Freeze have accounted for 40.6% of Auburn’s sacks over the past two seasons.
• Of the 36 total transfers in Freeze’s first two seasons, 17 have started five or more games. Ten have started 10 or more games.
• Eight of the 36 total transfers signed by Freeze have transferred back out of the program. Six did so after just one season.

Looking ahead to what the 2025 transfer class could produce, it’s hard to predict how many of the 19 players will meet or outperform expectations. Only five were projected to be starters in AL.com’s recent depth chart predictions, but many more are expected to at least play some sort of role in 2025.

Whether or not Auburn will continue to bring in double-digit transfers every year will depend largely on how many players it loses to the portal each offseason. And with every passing year of the transfer portal, that becomes harder and harder to predict.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m