Auburn football lost OL/DL recruit to Alabama Crimson Tide baseball

Auburn football almost had AL.com’s Birmingham Male Athlete of the Year Riley Quick, who happens to be both a 4-star offensive tackle and a starting pitcher that throws a 93 MPH fastball, but lost out on the dual-sport stud to the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Quick had been in talks with former Tigers offensive line coach Will Friend and running backs coach Carnell ‘Cadillac’ Williams and was also in contact with Mississippi State football, whose baseball program coincidentally won the 2021 College World Series.

Nick Saban not being more dug in on his recruitment likely indicated that he wasn’t going to try his hand at football in college, though. Quick’s weight, which hovers in the 240s-250s, would not have been sustainable in the SEC gridiron trenches. Hence, the baseball commitment.

As Quick told AL.com’s Ben Thomas, he was almost going to boost Bryan Harsin’s Year 2 Tigers:

"“I was very close. No one really knows that. When I was committed to play baseball at Alabama, I was talking to Auburn and Mississippi State, and I was about to go to Auburn to play football. I talked to my brother (Georgia Tech offensive lineman and former Alabama player Pierce Quick) and my dad and a bunch of friends, and they all just kind of advised me that baseball was the right path for me. I love both sports, but I don’t have any regrets.”"

Riley Quick could have been ninth 4-star recruit in Auburn football’s 2022 recruiting class

The Tigers not being able to add Riley Quick cost them an elite athlete along the OL, and potentially DL as well, but also kept their total number of 4-star recruits in their Class of 2022 at eight.

Auburn did add local product Eston Harris Jr. at the OT position, but Quick could have been a top 50 player in the country on the gridiron according to Huskies’ football coach Josh Floyd. Floyd described the six-foot-five, 260-pounder as a genius between the lines that knows where everyone needs to be. That’s what made him a versatile lineman capable of playing both sides of the ball.

And someone that also happens to possess one of the hardest skills in sports to acquire, accurately throwing a baseball 60 feet and six inches past a live batter.