If it was up to Jalyn Crawford’s coach the whole time, there hardly would have been a recruiting process. Brian Miller, defensive backs coach for Crawford at Lilburn, Georgia’s Parkside High School, is an Auburn fan. His brother, Brad Lester, played at Auburn. Miller joked he certainly had a bias throughout Crawford’s recruitment process.

As a Georgia native, playing football in Athens was Crawford’s dream growing up. But on Saturday, Crawford — a class of 2024 4-star rated cornerback — committed to Auburn. He picked Auburn over Florida and LSU. Georgia wasn’t one of his finalists.

At his commitment announcement at a church in Lilburn, Crawford said the coaches made Auburn feel like home when he made his multiple visits to campus.

Crawford is the 11th commitment in Auburn 2024 recruiting class and the fourth defensive back. He is currently the third highest rated player in the class per 247Sports ratings and the best ranked of the defensive backs.

Even as recently as a few days before Crawford’s commitment, Miller said he was deciding between Auburn and Florida. As his commitment date approached, multiple experts submitted “Crystal Ball” predictions for the Tigers.

Auburn heavily began pursuing Crawford after head coach Hugh Freeze was hired in November. The Tigers offered him a scholarship in December and he had three unofficial visits to The Plains in 2023 before taking an official visit in June.

Miller said he felt a more committed effort to land Crawford from Auburn’s coaching staff under Freeze compared to previous coach Bryan Harsin.

“They love the kids, they love the process totally different from the previous staff recruiting wise,” Miller said. “They’re very visible. They are going to make a statement in the recruiting process.”

It was never going to take much convincing Miller to be comfortable sending one of his players to Auburn after a coaching staff he didn’t appear to believe in, but Miller said Auburn coaches including secondary coaches Zac Etheridge — one of the few holdovers from the Harsin staff — and Wesley McGriff quickly sold him again on the program.

Crawford began working with Miller in his sophomore year at Parkside. In his first time seeing Crawford play, Miller remembers a 7-on-7 game where he dominated playing both sides of the ball and making multiple one handed catches. While Crawford is a cornerback, he knew the receiver route tree so well that Miller often saw running routes for receivers as he covered them.

Miller described Crawford as a leader on the field, especially because of his football intelligence. Crawford consistently knew where both he and his teammates in the secondary needed to be on the field at all times. He is a polished cornerback, Miller said.

That can especially be seen in practice, where Miller said Crawford often stands out more than in games.

At one practice — before the sun rose and with heavy rain pouring down — Crawford was coming up on a run. The grass surface wasn’t complete on the field yet, Miller said, so the rain turned the ground quickly into mud. That didn’t matter for Crawford.

“They ran a toss play for J’s side, and J just straight cleans the dude, almost takes his helmet off,” Miller said. “Next play, they come at him with a slant route and he breaks it up. It was just stuff like that where it’s okay, he has that ‘it’ about him.”

Introducing Crawford to Auburn fans, Miller described his corner as an approachable person. He believes Crawford is someone who will work on and off the field. And he believes the highlights like the ones he saw in practice will come to The Plains, too.

“He wants to win, I’ll tell you that right now,” Miller said.

If Georgia used to be Crawford dream school, his list of finalists didn’t show it. Georgia didn’t offer Crawford a scholarship. Now that he’s committed to Auburn, he’s going to line up again Georgia every year.

“Georgia slipped on this one, that’s how I feel,” Miller said.