It isn’t very often a returning All-SEC player “flies under the radar.”

But such has been case for Auburn tight end Rivaldo Fairweather, whose name has spent the offseason buried underneath the names of Auburn’s incoming wide receivers.

“Valdo is a guy that somehow is flying under the radar now with all these new playmakers that everybody wants to talk about which, rightfully so,” Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne said of Fairweather during SEC Media Days on Thursday.

“But yeah, you talk about the receivers, the running backs and say, ‘Oh, we have one of the best tight ends in the country too.’”

During the 2023 season — his first at Auburn after transferring from FIU —Fairweather led the Tigers’ receiving efforts with 394 yards and seven touchdowns on 38 catches, setting Auburn’s single-season record for most receptions by a tight end.

Often times, it felt Fairweather was the most consistent piece of Auburn’s passing game last fall.

“I think you saw when we had critical moments, we tried to get it to him,” Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze told local reporters ahead of his time at the SEC Media Days podium in Dallas on Thursday.

In Week 2 of the 2023 season, the Tigers needed some heroics from Fairweather to help fend off the Cal Golden Bears in a low-scoring affair out in Berkeley.

If not for a pair of do-or-die catches by Fairweather in the fourth quarter, the Tigers would’ve been in serious danger of losing to the Golden Bears, which, in hindsight, could’ve kept Auburn from a bowl game in 2023.

Fortunately for all parties involved, Freeze anticipates that Auburn’s new-look wide receiver room will help take some of the pressure off of Fairweather, though the 6-foot-4 tight end will remain an integral part of Auburn’s offense.

“Now I do think we have some people that can take some of that burden off of him, but I mean, he’s a hard matchup and love how he’s looking, running, moving,” Freeze said. “We’ve always used those tight ends a lot of different ways.”

Freeze went on to say Fairweather was in that same “mode” of the likes of Evan Engram and Dawson Knox — two NFL tight ends who Freeze coached at Ole Miss.

“He’s not as fast as Evan, but he’s got great ball skills and can make those 50/50 catches whether we flex them out as a wideout or in the slot or wherever he goes from,” Freeze said. “I like him a lot.”

In 2023, Fairweather lined up just about anywhere a pass catcher could. And while it’s likely that’ll continued this fall, Freeze hopes he can keep Fairweather tucked at between the hashes like a traditional tight end when the Tigers are threatening inside the 10-yard line more than he did last year.

However, much of that will depend on how reliable Auburn’s wide receivers prove to be.

“He was our best chance,” Freeze said of Fairweather, looking back to last year.

After years of playing with FIU in Conference USA, Fairweather proved he could hold his own in the SEC last fall. Yet despite feeling like he’d proven himself and being draft-eligible, Fairweather didn’t show an interest in heading to the NFL.

“I just felt like I left a lot of food on the table. It’s unfinished business here,” Fairweather said when asked about his decision to return to Auburn in 2024.

In January, Fairweather told reporters he already had his sights set on being the best tight end in the nation.

“I’m sure he thinks he has something to prove,” Thorne said of Fairweather on Thursday.

“In terms of proving things to all the other people, I don’t know if he has a ton. But I know he has a ton to prove to himself and his family. I know his goals, and his aspirations and his ‘why.’ He has a very strong ‘why’ and that’s going to carry him to where he wants to go.”