After a week which saw four Auburn football players announce their decisions to leave school early and enter the NFL Draft, the Tigers will be focused on replacing a starter at nearly every position group for the 2018 season. However, wide receiver is not one of them.
Auburn’s five leading receivers and 13 players who caught a pass during the 2017 season are eligible to return for the 2018 season.
“That’s probably the best thing about our room,” said rising redshirt junior Darius Slayton. “We’re really talented but we’re really young.”
Slayton was Auburn’s biggest deep threat and second-leading receiver behind junior Ryan Davis, who set the school single-season record for receptions with 84.
Despite its youth, Auburn’s receiving corps took a considerable step forward from the previous season, helping the Tigers accumulate over 1,000 yards more through the air than it did in 2016.
“We made plays for our team whenever a receiver’s name was called,” rising junior Nate Craig-Myers said. “We stepped up. I feel like whenever the team went, it was the receivers that helped out.”
Craig-Myers said he and other Tiger receivers entered the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl with the idea every contributing receiver would be returning in the back of their minds. Auburn fell 34-27 to the undefeated UCF Knights but amassed 331 receiving yards in the bowl game, its best output against an FBS team all season.
“We knew that coming into the game everybody was coming back, and we knew that we’re going to have to work every day,” Craig-Myers said. “It’s going to be a grind in the offseason. We just feel like the future is going to be bright for us and we’ve just got to keep on progressing.”
Auburn’s receivers hope to continue their progression with more competition amongst each other than ever before. Aside from the five receivers (Craig-Myers, Davis, Slayton, Will Hastings and Eli Stove) who collected a majority of playing time available at the position in 2017, others expect to find an expanded role on the field next season.
Freshmen Marquis McClain and Noah Igbinoghene both made plays in the Peach Bowl, and junior college transfer Sal Cannella, who had three catches for 31 yards as a sophomore, said he foresees more playing time for himself in 2018.
“All of us here have special abilities, this whole receiver group,” Cannella said. “There’s someone behind you at all times. There’s no room for error at this level.”
Auburn currently has four receivers listed in its incoming recruiting class, led by four-star commit Matthew Hill, also set to join a crowded room of wideouts.
"Next year we’ll have everybody back and we’ll be able to add in some new recruits, so it will be a really good unit,” Slayton said.
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