On3 Roundtable: How far away is Auburn from competing for national championship

The expectations at Auburn are pretty simple. Those on the Plains want to see their team compete for a national championship on a yearly basis. Since 2017, there has not been a real run from the Tigers, and watching arch-rivals Alabama and Georgia sustain success makes the pressure grow even more.

Hugh Freeze has been brought on to deliver on those expectations. Only issue? He has quite the roster mess to fix up after the Bryan Harsin era. Recruiting was not something Harsin particularly excelled in, never ranking in the top five of the SEC.

In order for Auburn to get back to national championship level, high school and NCAA transfer portal recruiting is a must. Justin Hokanson of On3’s Auburn Live believes Freeze has at least a two-year process on his hands before being able to feel comfortable with where the roster is.

“If you’re saying ‘how do we get the roster to the point where we feel like on any given Saturday, we can compete with anybody in the country.’ If you’re Auburn, that’s your expectation,” Hokanson said to JD PicKell on On3 Roundtable. “Where are you compared to that? I would say you’re two years away or maybe two recruiting cycles away. Obviously, a lot of the depends on the portal. Who knows. Maybe next winter they go out and crush it in the portal and they speed that timeline up.”

Of course, recruiting is the lifeblood of any program. Not being able to land guys from the high school ranks will lead to problems down the road — just ask Harsin. But the portal could be a real asset to Freeze according to Hokanson. The floor of the roster can consistently stay high by building up depth via experience.

“I think you’re two really good cycles of high school and portal and doing it right and landing kids and not missing too many, landing your fair share,” Hokanson said. “I think that gets you to ‘okay, our roster is starting to look like what it should look like if we’re going to compete for a national championship. You would still be young at that point. You would have to do it over and over and over to build the balance.

“The portal helps that. You can go get experienced guys in the portal. You don’t need four high school classes anymore to build the depth all the way throughout. You can build the high school talent plus the portal and sprinkle in that experience that way.”