B/R leaves Auburn football out of their post-National Signing Day Top 25

Many Tiger fans have been critical of Auburn football’s National Signing Day where the team failed to land a single five-star recruit…but they are not alone.

Bleacher Report is similarly unimpressed by the Tigers’ performance this past Wednesday.

So much so that B/R failed to list them in their post-National Signing Day Top 25 rankings:

"1. Alabama Crimson Tide2. Oklahoma Sooners3. Clemson Tigers4. Georgia Bulldogs5. Ohio State Buckeyes6. Iowa State Cyclones7. North Carolina Tar Heels8. Cincinnati Bearcats9. Texas A&M Aggies10. Oregon Ducks11. Notre Dame Fighting Irish12. Iowa Hawkeyes13. USC Trojans14. Texas Longhorns15. Miami Hurricanes16. Indiana Hoosiers17. Florida Gators18. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers19. Wisconsin Badgers20. Arizona State Sun Devils21. LSU Tigers22. Northwestern Wildcats23. Penn State Nittany Lions24. Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns25. Oklahoma State Cowboys"

Ouch.

Looking at the list, there are some teams that definitely stand out as teams that don’t deserve that distinction…even if they had what many would consider more successful NSD’s.

The first is Penn State. The Nittany Lions were a losing program in 2020, but unlike LSU, they did not bring in a top 5 recruiting class.

As Victory Bell Rings’ Alec Whitaker pointed out, they even missed out on some key targets that Penn State fans expected:

"Penn State’s 2021 class probably isn’t what many expected it to be. There is no Nolan Rucci or Derrick Davis Jr., and they failed to bring in a running back or defensive tackle."

Auburn football will have a chance to expose the Nittany Lions when the two teams clash in September up north.

The second team that will likely be revealed to be an inferior program is the Arizona State Sun Devils. After going 2-2 in what was a half-assed, poorly constructed Pac-12 slate, ASU ended up with a recruiting class that ranked 48th in the nation.

Perhaps Auburn got snubbed because of SEC fatigue. As Brad Shepard points out, this was not a banner year for the SEC, even if it would be for any other conference:

"But the SEC’s dominance of the recruiting rankings is nowhere near what it was a year ago when a remarkable seven of the top 10 teams in the 247Sports composite recruiting rankings hailed from the battlegrounds of the Southeast.In the 2019 cycle, that number wasn’t quite as high, but the SEC accounted for half the teams in the top 10 and seven of the top 13."

Guess that’s why they say “It Just Means More.”

Ultimately, Bleacher Report doesn’t determine who will be the Top 25 teams when the 2021 season is all said and done. With even more of a chip on his shoulder with pundits dismissing his recruiting staff’s first National Signing Day, Bryan Harsin will lead Auburn football into the new era against the odds.

Even with Alabama having the most successful NSD ever, this season promises happier moments and better times on the Plains than 2020 did.

We hope.