The Auburn Tigers football brain trust had talked about August 1 being a major date on the schedule for recruiting purposes. Well, 8/1 came and went and not one commitment was landed.
Third-party NIL payments were at risk of being discontinued when Hugh Freeze and John Cohen made those insinuations, but regulation ended up being the decision from the U.S. government's college sports task force.
Bama Hammer's Ronald Evans blamed Auburn's lack of recruiting wins after the calendar turned to August on a lack of spending power.
Evans labeled the Tigers as "short on funds."
"All indications were that Auburn had specific flip targets, and the Tigers were poised to sweep in for quick commit flips. Some of those flips can still happen. It is a long time until December. Auburn insiders provided some surprising information about the Tigers' written offers. Apparently, the offers did not include precise dollar amounts. That might well be a wise strategy. Market demand will change in the coming months, and overbidding now could deplete available funds," Evans wrote.
"Another reason for Auburn not being specific now is that the Tigers might be short on funds."
Auburn did plenty of spending to not only reel in the nation's No. 8 recruiting class this past cycle, but to keep their returning 2024 risers. Bruce Pearl's basketball team also dropped big bucks on rebuilding a roster that lost nearly its entire Final Four group besides Tahaad Pettiford, including its entire starting five.
Good thing third-party collectives can still spend big. Unfortunately, AU doesn't have an alumni base that can match Texas oil money spending or Big Ten corporate funds.
If they did, maybe August 1 would've meant something. But instead, Auburn football is on the defensive, unclear if they'll even be spending on talent for the current regime.