Auburn Safety Caleb Wooden plans to enter NCAA Transfer Portal
AUBURN — Auburn third-year safety Caleb Wooden plans to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal according to On3’s Pete Nakos. Wooden, who is the younger brother of former Auburn defensive lineman, Colby Wooden, who now plays for the Green Bay Packers.
Wooden, in his time at Auburn, recorded 41 tackles, two interceptions, and a fumble recovery. He had an interception against Alabama in the 2024 Iron Bowl. Wooden was a three-star recruit out of Archer High in Lawrenceville, Ga.
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What does it mean?
Wooden provided depth at safety for most of the year. He often found himself in the middle of big plays when inserted. He played deep safety when Auburn went with three safeties in the dime look. Wooden caused a few turnovers in his Auburn career. Auburn will add more depth at safety, so this is not a huge loss, but he performed well enough to call it a medium-impact loss for now. Departure impact: Medium
Keep track of On3 Sports transfer portal team rankings here.
Auburn finished with the No. 6 portal class in 2023 and the No. 17 class in 2024.
The On3 Sports overall team recruiting rankings can be found here.
Auburn finished with the No. 8 class in 2024 and currently has the No. 5 class for 2025. Auburn’s entire class list with rankings and profiles can be found here.
Following Auburn’s Iron Bowl loss to Alabama, head coach Hugh Freeze addressed how aggressive the Tigers might be in the portal moving forward.
“Well, we’re going to try to sign the best high school class we can first on Wednesday,” Freeze said. “And then, it’s very hard to answer that because as you know, you have no idea even what your roster is going to look like a week from now. So it’s kind of difficult to answer. But the first priority is let’s get this signing class in next Wednesday and then we’ll go from there and see what’s next.”
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Freeze said the combination of attempting to retain your roster and recruit in the portal creates real uncertainty during the process.
“It’s hard to say–I mean you feel optimistic about everything we’ve done, but how in the heck do you really know in today’s times. We’ve just got to work to the end. The good thing is, as mentioned earlier, you know, there’s a portal that opens too, if you don’t get all the ones that you wanted,” Freeze said.
“I’ve said I want to try to build through high school and I can’t even keep up with it, you know, anymore. Really, I’m kind of off the social media world and if somebody don’t tell me something, it’s hard for me to even keep up. But I feel pretty good about most of our relationships. But again, you never really know.
“We have one Top-10 class and hopefully we can land another next week. We have to go back and try to finish it, then hit the portal to make sure we aren’t feeling this way next year.”
