It was July 26 and 5-star Chilton County linebacker Demarcus Riddick sat at a table flanked by his parents.

His mother, celebrating a birthday, dug into a gift bag and pulled out an Auburn hat as Riddick announced his commitment to Hugh Freeze and the Auburn Tigers, who beat out Alabama and Georgia for the commitment of Riddick.

“This is where I want to be for the next three or four years, it feels like home being there,” Riddick said after announcing his commitment to Auburn.

Ironically, Riddick didn’t get an opportunity to experience that home-like feeling until after Hugh Freeze arrived at Auburn eight months prior. Despite Riddick being a coveted prospect less than an hour and a half away from Auburn’s campus, he was never pursued by the Tigers under former head coach Bryan Harsin.

But such was the reputation of Harsin, who is said to have paid little to no attention to many of the high school football programs in Auburn’s backyard.

“He came in under COVID so you kinda give him a pass in year one,” said Erik Speakman, former head coach of Opelika High School, which is located just 20 minutes from Auburn’s campus. “But then you really never saw much of those guys. And it wasn’t just him, but the whole staff.”

Harsin’s recruiting efforts – or lack thereof – played a big role in he and the program’s rapid decline. After less than two seasons on The Plains, Harsin was axed on Halloween in 2022, putting an abrupt end to a tenure that lasted less than two full seasons.

By that point, however, Harsin had already left Auburn’s roster with a pair of black eyes and a gruesome amount of attrition, making for a steep uphill battle for whoever took over as Auburn’s next head coach.

Come November of 2022, Freeze was announced as Auburn’s head coach, therefore inheriting said uphill battle. And Freeze learned quick that he and his still-developing coaching staff were going to have their hands full trying to get Auburn’s roster back on track.

“I don’t want to be negative,” Freeze told local media members before taking the podium at SEC Media Days in July. “Just… it was off from what I believe an Auburn roster should look like. Recruiting has been a little more challenging than I thought for Auburn, because of what I believe Auburn should be and what it’s proven it can be.”

Eight days after Freeze muttered those words in a tiny breakout room somewhere in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Nashville, Riddick announced his commitment to Auburn, giving the Tigers their first 5-star commit since Owen Pappoe in 2019.

But perhaps more importantly, the commitment of Riddick symbolized one of the first fence posts Freeze and the Tigers’ current coaching staff put in the ground as they set out to build a fence around the perimeter of Auburn’s backyard – something Harsin and his staff never bothered to do.

The June 15th commitment of 4-star linebacker Joseph Phillips, who comes by way of Booker T. Washington High School in Tuskegee, was another critical piece in Freeze’s fence-building efforts.

No stranger to the grind of recruiting in the SEC, however, Freeze knew there was more he had to do to try and stake claim of his territory.

Back in August, Jackson High School football coach Cody Fluornoy and Opelika’s Speakman told AL.com that Freeze and other members of Auburn’s coaching staff had paid their programs a visit during the offseason.

No, the Tigers weren’t heavily recruiting a player at either of their programs, but it was still a sight for sore eyes considering neither prep program received much attention from Auburn under Harsin.

But that wasn’t going to be the case under Freeze, whose previous SEC experience from his time at Ole Miss likely taught him two things: the importance of winning recruiting battles in your home state and the quality of high school talent in the state of Alabama.

“You really better do your homework,” Speakman said in August, days after Auburn’s big recruiting win in Riddick. “And I think that’s what you’re seeing now with Coach Freeze is his familiarity with the SEC from his time at Ole Miss — Just the emphasis on getting in-state guys that wanna be at Auburn and wanna play for Auburn, and then those guys in Georgia and some guys from Florida.”

Looking at 247Sports’ prospect rankings for the 2024 class, there were five players from the state of Alabama ranked inside the top-26, proving just how nutrient dense the soil of the Yellowhammer State is in terms of football talent.

Texas was the only state to with more players in the top-26 as the Lonestar State boasted six.

Of those five Alabama natives ranked inside the top-26, Freeze and the Tigers landed a pair of them in 5-star wide receiver Cam Coleman, who ranks as the No. 1 player in the state of Alabama, and fellow 5-star wide receiver Perry Thompson, who ranks as the fifth-best player in the state of Alabama.

Meanwhile, Nick Saban and Alabama are on track to land a pair of their own as 5-star athlete Jaylen Mbakwe signed his letter of intent with the Crimson Tide Wednesday, while 5-star wide receiver Ryan Williams remains committed to the Tide, despite the relentless pursuit of Freeze and the Tigers.

Williams, ranked as the second-best player in the state of Alabama, says he won’t sign his letter of intent until February, meaning there are still two months left in Williams’ recruitment, which is bound to come down to the wire.

Now, if you take a magnifying glass to the state of Alabama exclusively, you’ll find that the Tigers landed nine of the state’s top-25 prospects Wednesday as Coleman, Thompson, Riddick, Phillips, 4-star wide receivers Malcolm Simmons and Bryce Cain, 4-star defensive back A’Mon Lane-Ganus, 4-star safety Kaleb Harris and 4-star defensive lineman Malik Blocton all signed their letters of intent with the Tigers.

Auburn’s rival in Tuscaloosa, meanwhile, saw five of the state’s top-25 prospects sign their name on the dotted line, cementing their plans to play for Saban and the Crimson Tide.

During his press conference Wednesday afternoon, Freeze didn’t want to jump to any conclusions – especially since the dust off the day had still all but settled.

“I don’t know if we won the state this year or not,” Freeze said. “I don’t know how that’s determined.”

And to be fair to Freeze, that likely won’t be determined until February, when both Auburn and Alabama put finishing touches on their 2024 recruiting classes.

Nonetheless, after inking 10 high school players from the state of Alabama Wednesday, Freeze and Auburn’s coaching staff are steadily adding to their fenced-in backyard – a home improvement project that started back in June and July with the commitments of Phillips and Riddick.

“We certainly want to in the future of winning our share if not more than our share in this state,” Freeze said Wednesday. “I thought Joseph (Phillips) and (Demarcus) Riddick really helped kick-start that.”