Auburn football: 2021 signee Juwon Gaston headed to JUCO

Auburn Undercover’s Keith Niebuhr reported yesterday that Juwon Gaston, a member of Auburn’s 2021 recruiting class, will be attending Hutchinson Community College instead of joining the Auburn football program this fall. Gaston was a four-star recruit per 247Sports and the number 17 player in the state of Alabama for the 2021 class.

To say that Bryan Harsin inherited a lackluster recruiting class when he was hired at the end of December would be putting the situation lightly. The end of the recruiting cycle, especially when most blue-chip prospects sign during the early signing period in December, left the new staff scrambling to fill the remaining spots and build momentum.

Per CBS Sports, only 30 of the 358 players rated four-stars or better in the 247Sports Composite remained unsigned coming out of the early signing period.

After a strong senior season at Carver High School in Montgomery, Juwon Gaston was a standout at the Mississippi/Alabama All-Star Game. Gaston held offers from South Carolina and Tennessee, but there wasn’t a ton of buzz around the hard hitting safety.

Enter Bryan Harsin and Auburn football.

Bryan Harsin preaches culture, fit, and evaluations when talking about recruiting, and it wasn’t long after offering Gaston on January 20th that Harsin and company received validation on their evaluation of Gaston when he received a massive rankings boost from 247Sports.

What this means for Auburn moving forward is two-fold. It means Auburn’s head coach and the staff around him can, and should be, trusted in their evaluations of talent. It also means that it would surprise me not to see Juwon Gaston be an Auburn Tiger down the road, something Keith Niebuhr said as well.

Strange things happen, and we won’t speculate the circumstances surrounding his news, but I feel confident in saying if he fit the culture that Harsin is trying to build that this won’t be the last we see of Juwon Gaston.