Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes have pushed many of their chips on the table toward the transfer portal.

While they’re not quite all in, as of Sunday night — 13 days after the transfer portal window opened — Sanders and the Buffaloes have seen 15 transfers announce their commitments to Colorado. According to 247Sports, that’s good for the second-ranked 2024 transfer class.

Should Colorado keep its No. 2 transfer class ranking, it’ll be the second year in a row the Buffaloes finish with one of the top two transfer classes. In 2023, Sanders brought in a whopping 51 transfers as he looked to rebuild Colorado’s roster.

Meanwhile, Colorado’s recent high school recruiting classes have fallen short.

In 2023, Sanders landed the 21st-ranked recruiting class. Right now, he’s on par to finish, again, with the 21st-ranked recruiting class.

That’s essentially a choice college football coaches are faced with — Does one lean hard into the transfer portal? Or does one stick with recruiting kids out of the high school ranks in hopes they stay long enough to be developed.

“I don’t know which is right,” Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said Saturday during his press conference.

Freeze does, however, know which way he prefers.

“I’m going to try the high school formula, with needs from the portal,” Freeze said Saturday.

Obviously, when Freeze first arrived at Auburn, the Tigers had lots of needs, forcing Freeze to go poking around the transfer portal in an effort to find quick fixes. Auburn ended with the fifth-ranked transfer class in 2023 as it welcomed in 20 new faces.

But that isn’t how Freeze wants to operate going forward.

So unlike coaches like Colorado’s Sanders, Freeze has pushed a majority of his chips towards the high school ranks. And so far, the Tigers have reaped the benefits.

“I would really love to build it like that and get a relationship with kids and their families and try to hold onto them at Auburn and get Auburn to love them and them to love Auburn,” Freeze said. “I’m just still hopeful that there’s a group of guys that we can convince to do that.”

As of Saturday night, Auburn had the 11th-ranked recruiting class of the 2024 cycle, according to 247Sports.

The 20-commit class is highlighted by a pair of 5-star wide receivers in Cam Coleman and Perry Thompson. The commitments of 4-star Bryce Cain and 3-star Malcolm Simmons helps Freeze round out a stellar class of wide receivers.

The Tigers are also expecting 4-star quarterback Walker White to sign his letter of intent Wednesday.

Meanwhile, on the defensive side of the football, guys like 4-star edge rusher Jamonta Waller and 4-star linebacker Demarcus Riddick help bolster Auburn’s class as a pair of prospects who were previously committed to other SEC programs before flipping to the Tigers.

However, none of those guys have put pen to paper yet. And while Freeze is hopeful they will, this isn’t his first rodeo.

“I’m optimistic,” Freeze said Saturday. “But I’ve done this long enough to know some crazy things can happen between now and Signing Day. I’m certainly not going to think that it’s all finished.”

That’s where the risk comes in.

Should, for whatever reason, some of Auburn’s big-name recruits balk on signing day, then what?

“If I strike out on the high school guys, we’ll be begging for the portal guys in January and the spring,” Freeze said Saturday.

But so far, Freeze and the Tigers’ batting average against transfer portal prospects hasn’t been that great, either. And that’s not opinion, Freeze said that himself during Saturday’s press conference.

“I don’t think I’ve done very well, truthfully,” Freeze said when asked about Auburn’s work in the portal. “It’s difficult.”

Freeze has often pat himself on the back for his own ability recruit. However, much of that success comes from him being able to establish a relationship with the prospect face-to-face.

But that’s harder to do when dealing with transfer prospects, Freeze says.

“In the portal it’s different,” Freeze said. “I try to prove to them, initially on a phone call, that they should look at Auburn. We’ve done okay with that… We’ve had many visits set and they never even get to campus and they’ve already decided where they’re going before we ever get to ever get in front of them, which is a bit different for me.”

Just last week, Auburn had scheduled visits with San Jose State transfer offensive lineman Fernando Carmona Jr. and Mississippi State wide receiver Zavion Thomas. But both transfer prospects ended up committing elsewhere before they could even make it to The Plains.

“Maybe we need to start trying to visit them as soon as you can instead of setting up for a weekend that never happens,” Freeze said. “I don’t know. It’s been challenging to figure out.”

The other challenge with the transfer portal? The Tigers don’t even know what to put on their shopping list just yet.

Undoubtedly, Auburn has positions of need. Perhaps the most pressing are wide receivers, offensive linemen and guys along the defensive front.

Fortunately, with the players Freeze has committed to Auburn’s 2024 recruiting class, most of those needs are slated to be satisfied. But again, ink hasn’t hit paper and anyone who has followed college football recruiting for any amount of time knows the battles are far from over.

“I guess I’ve already put my chips in saying I’m pretty all-in on trying to sign this high school class and would like to see it through and then go from there,” Freeze said. “Again, not one to sit here and say my plan is the perfect one but that’s the plan.”

Come Wednesday, the start of the early signing period, Freeze and Auburn fans alike will see how that plan shakes out.