Auburn football: Tigers land coveted 4-star safety

Auburn football (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Auburn football (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /
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Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele picked up another big piece for the future of his defense with the commitment of Ahmari Harvey.

Ahmari Harvey is a star safety at the Florida State University school — a laboratory school located in Tallahassee, Florida that is sponsored by FSU. With Harvey’s obvious connection to the Seminoles, it would seem like a no-brainer for the 5-foot-11, 175-pound safety to commit to Mike Norvell and Florida State.

However, with a final list of FSU, Texas A&M and Auburn, Harvey decided to leave the state of Florida and commit to Auburn.

Per the 247Sports Composite rankings, Harvey is the No. 177 recruit in the class of 2021 and is a top-10 player at his position. Harvey announced his commitment to Auburn on Friday live via CBS Sports.

The Tigers offered Harvey well over a year ago in April of 2019 and have been pursuing him hard ever since. Things have been trending towards Auburn’s favor in the last few months and all 10 247Sports Crystal Ball predictions for the four-star recruit had him becoming a Tiger.

Harvey now becomes the 14th member of Auburn’s 2021 recruiting class and the fourth player to commit to the team this month. After a slow start to the 2021 recruiting class, Auburn has picked up the slack as of late and the Tigers now move up five spots to No. 18 in the national recruiting class rankings.

In addition, Harvey now joins fellow Floridian Phillip O’Brien Jr. as the second safety in Auburn’s 2021 class. The Tigers also have JUCO cornerback Kamal Hadden and three-star athlete Tar’varish Dawson to likely add to the team’s secondary next season.

Other than Harvey, the Tigers are also hoping from commitments from top defensive prospects such as Ga’Quincy McKinstry, Smael Mondon and Jeremiah Williams — all of whom have Auburn in their top lists of schools

As for what you can expect from Harvey in the future, Miami football insider Andrew Irvin compliments his ball skills, leaping ability and run support ability in his scouting report for the newest Auburn commit. Irvin also believes Harvey has the talent to be a multi-year starter at the collegiate level and the ability to develop into a future NFL draft pick.

With Auburn defensive backs Jamien Sherwood, Malcolm Askew, Smoke Monday, Jordyn Peters, Marco Domio, Christian Tutt, Roger McCreary and Devan Barrett all being upperclassmen this season, Harvey could be in line for early playing time on The Plains.