Not even one year ago Auburn had hardly, if at all, begun recruiting 5-star linebacker recruit Demarcus Riddick. Since then, all Auburn has done is flip Riddick away from the two-time defending national champions as well as beat out its in-state rival which has long dominated local top talent for the program’s highest-rated recruit since 2019.

Riddick’s announcement Wednesday is the type of recruiting win Auburn hasn’t had in a long time. It’s been a while since Auburn was a serious player for top talent within state lines. Riddick’s choice — picking Auburn instead of Georgia and Alabama — puts Auburn back on a platform it has longed for, and begins to regain confidence from local high school coaches who have told AL.com they felt spurned during previous head coach Bryan Harsin’s tenure.

“It was just very hands-off,” Chilton County High School head coach Marvin Morton said of how Harsin’s staff recruited Riddick in a Tuesday interview with AL.com. “They just made that one visit and, you know, especially with being in-state, you know, thought there would be more follow-up after the visit. But there wasn’t.”

Morton said he’s talked to other high school coaches throughout the state who shared a similar message: they wanted to see interest from one of Alabama’s biggest football programs, but they never got it.

Brian Miller, high school coach of Auburn commit Jalyn Crawford, said Auburn’s new coaching staff had to convince him to feel comfortable sending his players there again.

The lack of involvement high school coaches discussed sent Auburn into the recruiting spiral inherited by first-year head coach Hugh Freeze and his staff.

Recruiting data shows just how much Auburn has failed to recruit the state of Alabama recently. From the 2019 through the 2023 high school classes, there were 83 four and five-star rated players out of the state, based on 247Sports composite rankings. Of those 83, 31 chose Alabama (37%), 12 chose Auburn (14%).

Yet that talent gap has already shrunk greatly for the 2024 class. There are currently 25 players in the state with four-star or five-star ratings. With Riddick’s commitment, seven of them are currently committed to Auburn, and five to Alabama. Those numbers could favor Auburn more as Freeze’s program continues attempting to flip 5-star wide receiver Perry Thompson from Foley High School. Thompson and Riddick are both expected to be at Auburn’s Big Cat Weekend this coming weekend.

Riddick is Auburn’s first 5-star recruit out of high school, according to 247Sports’ ratings, since linebacker Owen Pappoe in 2019. It’s the first time Auburn has landed one of the top five in-state recruits since Dylan Brooks and Lee Hunter in 2021.

So how did Auburn pull this off?

Riddick’s coach at Chilton County said it started with a new approach from a new coaching staff.

“They came in with energy,” Morton said of Auburn linebackers coach Josh Aldridge and the new coaching staff. “The coaches, they came to visit. The staff is very personable. I feel like they’re really making an emphasis on recruiting the top guys in the state. It’s just a different vibe.”

Morton said it didn’t take long for the Auburn coaches to win him over. He said they were genuine and made Riddick feel like a priority. There was stronger communication between coaches and Riddick than under Harsin’s tenure.

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

Certainly, Auburn had a lot of ground to make up. In less than a year Auburn formed a relationship with an in-state player it didn’t have one with — a player who had already committed to Georgia before Auburn seriously pursued him. It then beat out Alabama in its simultaneous pursuit of the same player.

With Riddick’s domino fallen, Auburn expects more coming. Freeze’s staff continues to pursue Thompson. It will continue to chase other top prospects like five-star safety KJ Bolden from Georgia.

Auburn’s not going to land every top player it recruits. But it’s been a long time since Auburn had a win over national championship contenders, especially those being the Tigers’ top rivals.

“If the Tigers can flip one or both of those recruits from their biggest rivals it will signal a new day for recruiting in Alabama where Auburn is again a player for the state’s best prospects,” Randy Kennedy of Sports Talk 99.5 in Mobile said in an interview with AL.com. “That hasn’t been true for the past several years.”