Caleb Cunningham soured on Auburn during his official visit to campus over the weekend. The five-star wide receiver prospect was not impressed by the Tigers’ performance during their ugly loss on Saturday and offered a brutal takedown of the program in its current state.
It is going to take a lot of convincing to get him to flip his commitment but Hugh Freeze and his staff are not giving up!
Cunningham is a top-three player at his position in the Class of 2025 and a top-25 player overall. He has 26 offers from schools all over the country, including Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Georgia, LSU, Miami, Texas, USC and Oregon. There is not a single program in college football that would turn him away if he wanted to play there.
However, the Mississippi-native committed to Alabama in July after honeypotting six different SEC schools during his chaotic recruitment.
Even though Cunningham seems pretty locked in on the Crimson Tide at this point, there are still a few schools who are trying to lure him away from Tuscaloosa. Auburn is one of them.
Auburn wants Caleb Cunningham.
Freeze, wide receivers coach Marcus Davis and offensive coordinator Derrick Nix (one of the nation’s best recruiters with deep ties to the Magnolia State) are trying to flip Cunningham before the Early Signing Period in December. They hosted him on campus this weekend.
It did not go well. The Tigers failed to score in the first half and lost by 10 to the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Starting quarterback Hank Brown was benched in favor of Payton Thorne after Thorne was benched for Brown last weekend. They combined for four interceptions and less than 300 yards passing on a completion rate of just 57%.
Cunningham made it abundantly clear that he was not impressed by the performance.
I didn’t see what I wanted to see. The quarterbacks, they didn’t really know who they should have put in at quarterback. Receivers, they played pretty good. They had some pretty good plays and things like that. They have a lot of things to work on.
— Caleb Cunningham, via Rivals
As bad as that sounds, the highly-coveted receiver is not going to cross Auburn off of his list just yet!
I still have relationships with Coach Davis, Coach Nix, Coach Freeze. I was just coming back to show them love. They’ve been wanting me to come back, they’re making sure I don’t leave them out yet because they’re still recruiting me hard. I just wanted to come check them out.
— Caleb Cunningham, via Rivals
There are a lot of problems on The Plains right now. Quarterback is the biggest one.
To try and fix the issue, Freeze is also trying to flip five-star signal-caller Deuce Knight from his commitment to Notre Dame. In fact, that flip feels inevitable at this point and Cunningham would be more open to joining him if/when that decision is made official.
It probably would (help). He is on me telling me I need to come to Auburn. He’s really interested in Auburn.
— Caleb Cunningham, via Rivals
Saturday was about as ugly as it could get for the Tigers. To have Caleb Cunningham witness such a poor showing was/is less than ideal but it didn’t ruin their chances. *wink wink*