The Auburn football coaching staff snapped a recruiting skid — one that saw the program spurned by a pair of Central-Phenix City prospects, 5-star wideout Cameron Coleman to Texas A&M and 3-star safety Rydarrius “Red” Morgan to Florida State — and landed 4-star defensive end Malik Blocton out of Pike Road.
Blocton joins Clay-Chalkville’s D’Angelo Barber, who singlehandedly saved the Fourth of July vibes for the Auburn family with his commitment, as the second defensive front commitment of the week and the third overall in the class; with Booker T. Washington (Tuskegee) EDGE Joseph Phillips being the first to join Ron Roberts’ group (for now anyway) for the 2024 season. In explaining why he chose the Plains, the Montgomery native gave a very easy-to-track explanation: home is where his heart is.
“I feel like I got a good chance to go in and play,” Blocton said of Auburn (h/t Rivals’ Caleb Jones). “I feel at home at Auburn.”
Malik Blocton chose Auburn football for the same reason Cameron Coleman didn’t
Blocton’s sense of feeling at home while on the Plains makes sense given the roughly 45-minute drive he’d be making up I85 north, but the same cannot be said of Coleman — who lives 45-minutes down Highway 280 in Phenix City but felt that feeling as he was 800 miles from home in College Station.
“Really the last time I went up there I felt comfortable and it was the place I wanted to be,” Coleman said (h/t 247Sports’ Steve Wiltfong). “My relationship with Coach (Dameyune) Craig was the tightest out of the bunch. They have a new offensive coordinator Coach Bobby (Petrino) and the Aggie network outside of life after football you can get a job after football and it was a place I felt comfortable with.”
Of course, Patrick Nix, father of the not always welcomed Bo Nix, is the coach at Central and could still have hard feelings towards AU. Regardless, the Auburn pipeline isn’t promising with Central, but the same cannot be said of Pike Road after Blocton’s commitment.