Auburn Football

The Auburn Tigers added a dynamic playmaker to their future wide receiver corps Thursday when prospect Seth Williams joined their 2018 recruiting class.

He made the announcement on his Twitter page:

https://twitter.com/8_sethwilliams/status/933793365723893765

Williams, who is 6'3" and 212 pounds, is a 4-star prospect, per 247Sports, and the No. 156 overall player and No. 30 wide receiver in his class. He's also the No. 4 player from the state of Alabama.

He attracted attention from some of the best programs in the country, and Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Georgia and Oregon, among others, were all on 247Sports' list of interested schools during his recruiting process.

Williams' size stands out, which should help him serve as a red-zone threat on fade routes in the end zone. He also has speed to make defenders miss in the open field.

Scout.com provided a breakdown of Williams' game and said he possesses "prototypical No. 1 wide receiver size." It also called him "electric" in the open field and praised his ability to play "all over the field" as a versatile weapon.

Williams can use his height to beat cornerbacks on jump balls and his acceleration with the ball in his hands to make tacklers miss in the open field.

Williams can impact the game in a number of ways from the slot or on the outside, and he joins an Auburn program that frequently wins behind a strong offensive line and rushing attack.

While the Tigers aren't likely to overhaul their plan of attack just because Williams is on board, he does provide them another dimension when defenses focus too much on the run. He can use his speed on bubble screens or height in one-on-one situations and force defenses to choose between slowing the rushing attack or focusing on him.

If Williams lives up to his potential, he could be one of the focal points of the offense in the coming seasons, even at a loaded program like Auburn. 

We begin in Pecos County, Texas, 5,000 square miles of forgotten badlands less than 90 minutes from the Mexican border. May as well be the middle of nowhere.

He tracked the giant mule deer for almost two miles across that barren terrain—along a hillside and down a deep, daring gorge. Because that's how it works in Texas: You go where the hunt takes you.

Even if it means tracking a deer into the belly of a steep, 3,000-foot canyon for the kill, or traveling nearly 1,000 miles from home and into a meat grinder college football conference to jump-start a forgotten career. One is a microcosm of the other.

The hunt—and the process of finding yourself that goes with it—has never been more important.

"There's a certain feeling I can't explain when you're out there hunting," Auburn quarterback Jarrett Stidham says. "It's like when I'm on the field. There are no distractions, no drama. It's just me and a clear head."

And the beginning of a long road back.

Stidham is almost three months into his first season at Auburn, a rocky but rewarding journey that's but a few obstacles from reaching the mountaintop, beginning with this weekend's annual Iron Bowl game against bitter rival Alabama.

He's two years removed from his last game at Baylor, and from that life-defining hunt in the south end of Pecos County where no more than 40 people live and they're asked to keep their lights off at night because the McDonald Observatory is doing astronomy heavy lifting in the skies above.

Stidham's family leases 700 acres in that southwest Texas tract, but they're not staring at the Big Dipper. Once they got to the bottom of the canyon that day in late December 2015, the real job was carrying the 300-pound deer back up a steep mountainside: through leathery cacti and their needle sharp fingers, through soil so parched and hard, they may as well have been walking on black ice pavement, through 12-degree temperatures and the wind whipping at 30 mph and God only knows where the wind chill was pegged.

Halfway up, Matt Copeland, Stidham's guardian, was feeling light-headed from the altitude, or maybe from the half tin of Copenhagen he'd swallowed on the way down. Either way, that left Stidham, still in a walking boot from a broken ankle suffered in the last game he played for Baylor a few weeks earlier—the last game he'd ever play for Baylor—dragging that deer more than 1,500 feet with little help from Copeland. Dragging and resting. Dragging and resting.

There are three feet in a yard, and 100 yards in a football field. Stidham hauled that thing five football fields up a gorge.

Three-and-a-half hours later, they had the deer home and a story of sheer perseverance to last a lifetime.

Nearly two years from that day, Stidham has a chance to write another of those stories at Auburn.

"He's feeling it now, you can tell," Auburn tailback Kerryon Johnson said of Stidham after the Tigers' biggest win of the season, two weeks ago against Georgia, setting up a winner-take-the-SEC West game in the Iron Bowl. "He's playing with a lot of confidence.

"This is the player we knew he would be."

This is the player he was—ever so briefly—at Baylor. Then the unthinkable unraveling of a dark secret began on the Baylor campus, and the next thing you know, Stidham was out of football.

He had to leave that toxic environment in Waco amid a sexual assault scandal that rocked the football program and resulted in the firing of wildly popular coach Art Briles. Had to walk away and take a year off football to recalibrate and reassess his future, finding a home at Auburn and easing into a championship-ready team that only needed efficiency and stability at the most important position on the field to play for it all.

And now here we are: The end of the hunt is near, and he's trying to pull Auburn through the steepest part of the all-encompassing canyon that is beating SEC king Alabama. This is why he was recruited to Auburn—why he chose the Tigers over Texas A&M and Florida, with the idea that there could be no better comeback story than winning the best conference in college football and earning a spot in the College Football Playoff.

"When we signed [Stidham], we all knew what it could mean if everything fit," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn says.

---

He woke one spring morning in 2015 to his phone buzzing like a kicked-over hornet's nest. Hundreds of texts and voicemails from people he didn't know and/or hadn't heard from in years.

"I thought it could only mean one thing," Stidham says. "Someone had died."

Or a whole program had.

When it all went down at Baylor, when the most successful coach in school history and the man whose success built a brand-new $300 million stadium on the banks of the Brazos River was fired, it really was like a death in the family for Stidham.

Growing up in the small Texas town of Stephenville, everyone knows everyone. They know the folks who run the world's largest rodeo, the annual extravaganza that makes Stephenville the unofficial Cowboy Capital of the World.

And they know the man who coached Stephenville High School to all those state championships. The population of Stephenville is 17,000, and Briles had nearly half (8,000) stuffed into Memorial Stadium every fall Friday night to watch his Yellow Jackets win four state titles.

He eventually moved on to the college level and coached his alma mater Houston before accepting the job at Baylor to rebuild of one of the worst major-conference programs. It took the better part of his eight years there to make Baylor an elite program, and a sexual assault culture that Briles was alleged to have covered up to bring it all down.

His last year there was Stidham's first, a season that began with Stidham backing up starter Seth Russell and eventually replacing him after a season-ending injury. Stidham started two-and-a-half games for the Bears before his season ended on a bitterly cold November night in Stillwater, Oklahoma, when his foot got tangled up on a sideline scramble and he broke a bone in his ankle.

Six months later, Stidham woke to that phone buzzing over and over, and the reality that his days at Baylor were likely over.

"I had no idea that stuff was going on," Stidham says. "For a while, it was like every day or every week something new was being said or happened. Life came at me pretty quick there. But I figured I wanted to take my career in my own hands, and if anybody was going to screw it up, it was going to be me."

That didn't make it any easier for his teammates to handle. They already had watched while one by one, nearly every member of the 2016 recruiting class asked out of their commitment. Now the future of the program was walking away, too.

They called him a quitter, said he bailed on them when they needed him most. The texts, the calls, the emails from friends he thought he'd spend four years of his life with.

They were staying and riding it out. He wasn't.

"That was a really unfair deal," a former assistant at Baylor under Briles tells Bleacher Report. "You're really going to dog-cuss your friend because he's looking out for himself? Listen, when Art was let go, it was every man for himself—players and coaches. It was an ugly time. I don't blame [Stidham] in the least for walking away."

---

They had no idea who he was when he pulled up in his pickup truck at Midway High School in August 2016, reached back in the bed and pulled out shoulder pads and a helmet and strolled onto the practice field.

Was he a move-in? A guy they'd never seen before whose parents moved to Waco from another city? Maybe he was a player who moved and followed new coach Jeff Hulme, who earlier in the year accepted the job at Midway after leading Mansfield to the Class 6A Division II semifinals in 2015.

Then Stidham stepped on the field at Midway and started throwing with the other quarterbacks.

"It was pretty apparent who he was after that," Hulme says.

When he decided to leave Baylor, and when it was clear he wasn't transferring out of haste to another FBS program and didn't want to play junior college football, Stidham decided to hang around Waco and take classes at a local community college to earn his associate's degree and put him one step closer to earning his college degree.

He asked Hulme, who like Stidham played for Briles at Stephenville High, if he could come by and throw with the team. He'd do whatever the team needed, he said.

"Best scout-team quarterback I've ever had," Hulme cracks.

Two years earlier, Stidham was leading Stephenville into the Class 4A state playoffs and was a 5-star recruit and Elite 11 quarterback camper who originally committed to Texas Tech before signing with Baylor. When he pulled away from Tech, he and Copeland got a firsthand look at the ugly side of recruiting.

Media reports around Lubbock claimed Copeland, a Texas Tech graduate, had steered Stidham to Baylor. When Stidham turned 18 prior to his senior season at Stephenville, he moved in with Copeland and his wife, Katy, and they quickly became Stidham's legal guardians.

There's not much more to this than it is: Stidham was 18 and an adult and chose to live with the Copelands. He still speaks to his biological parents, but he says his familial bond is with the Copelands.

When he left for Auburn, he may as well have moved halfway around the world for four-year-old Larsen Copeland. She wouldn't talk to Stidham on the phone or FaceTime for two months because she thought he abandoned her. Instead, she took his picture off the refrigerator and would walk around the Copeland house talking to it.

"I love my family more than anything," Stidham says now. "They've been such a blessing."

Matt Copeland's dad, Mike, was born with one arm and played center field and first base in college. The current athletic director at Stephenville, Mike Copeland thinks hitting a baseball with one arm is easier than doing it with two.

When he was a baby, his mother would put his bottle across the room so he had to crawl and get it and be like everyone else. There are no excuses in life; whatever hand you're dealt, that's what you go with.

More important, no matter what you're dealt, everyone needs a little help. Mike raised his son Matt to believe the most important thing in life is serving others, and not surprisingly, that's how Matt and Jarrett met.

Matt Copeland and his brother, Mitch, hire a handful of Stephenville High students every summer to work building apparel shops throughout the South.

"It's so inconsequential what we've done," Matt Copeland says. "Everything is on him. I swear it is. He is such a unique young man. When he came to live with us, we told him, 'In life you learn from other people's mistakes and don't make the same mistakes twice.' I told him, 'Jarrett, we raise people that want to help other people.'"

So there was Stidham, standing on that field at Midway High, the one-time Elite 11 recruit, throwing scout team for the local high school while biding time until he could restart his college career.

He wasn't any better than anyone else for those eight weeks, and he made lasting friendships with younger players who couldn't believe they were catching balls from the guy who threw for 419 yards and three touchdowns—and no interceptions—in his first college start on the road against Kansas State after taking over for Russell.

Every day at the end of practice, after he'd throw as long as the Midway defensive staff needed, he'd toss the shoulder pads and helmet in the back of his truck and drive away to go study and earn that associate's degree. All part of climbing the mountain.

"He was on a journey," Hulme says. "When I first met with him over lunch, I could tell he was overwhelmed. You could see it in his face. Having a place for him to come and just throw and be around football was really therapeutic for him. Physically, emotionally, everything. It was a big relief for him to come out here for an hour or two and sweat and be around the guys."

---

Chandler Cox walked into his apartment this spring, and staring back at him was a deer head on the wall. A colorful choice of decoration from his new roommate.

Cox was born in Salt Lake City and grew up in Orlando, and the closest thing he got to deer was the Country Bear Jamboree at Disney World. He had no idea what a 10-point buck looks like, or what a score of 140 means.

"It's kind of hard to miss. It's huge," Cox says.

So is its relevance. When you've scored 140 points on a shot—especially a first kill—you've successfully outwitted one of the smartest big-game animals in the forest. Whitetail deer that big likely have survived at least three or four hunting seasons, a rarity in Texas.

Deer hunting, Stidham will tell you, is as close as you can get to competing in sports. It's you vs. the big game. You have to be smart and patient, have to be willing to put time and effort into the hunt and see it through.

Which is no different than his 10 months at Auburn, where he arrived as a recruiting class of one—he was part of the 2017 recruiting class, but he's two years older than everyone else—and had to fit in quickly to win over his new teammates. And that wasn't the only adjustment.

Stidham went from playing with freedom in a pass-friendly system, to playing it by the book in a downhill run scheme. Baylor's offense has receivers at the numbers and forces safeties to make a choice: Stay at the hash to stop the run game, or move outside to bracket coverage and help cornerbacks.

That quarterback-friendly system thrives with a player who has an NFL arm and can get throws quickly to the numbers in various routes. The Auburn system is bunched, mostly at or near the hashmarks and based on misdirection and deception.

It's not that it's a bad system; it's just that it might not have been the perfect spot for Stidham.

"When you have a guy that has that kind of arm talent, you have to adjust to him to take advantage of what he does best," an NFL scout explains to Bleacher Report. "You're talking about a player who will play in this league and could be a high [NFL draft] pick with the proper development."

The climb up the mountain hasn't been an easy one. It began with an ugly loss to Clemson in which Stidham was sacked 11 times. Eleven times.

The Auburn offense is built around the run game, and Stidham began the season with no ability to change plays at the line of scrimmage. He ran what he was told.

When he threw for more than 400 yards in his first career start at Baylor when the wind was blowing hard off the Kansas plains, Stidham had complete authority to change plays at the line of scrimmage. In fact, he was encouraged to do so if he needed to get the offense out of a bad play.

Slowly, and over the course of the first 12 weeks of the season, Malzahn and offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey have given Stidham more flexibility. They're using more intermediate and deep throws, and defenses can no longer load up to stop Johnson and the power run game.

"It's a process," Malzahn says. "We all tend to forget, because Jarrett is so talented, that he only played in three games before he got here. He's learning and growing in the position."

He's still climbing up that mountain and still in the hunt. He's playing better than ever and is a big reason Auburn could be the first team other than Alabama representing the SEC West in the SEC Championship Game since Malzahn's first Tigers team in 2013.

You go where the hunt takes you. If you're lucky, you'll learn more about yourself than you could ever imagine.

"When you're sitting on that mountaintop and you see the sun come up, there's nothing quite like it," Stidham said.

He's almost there at Auburn. All it's going to take is the biggest catch ever to get there.

Auburn University athletic director Jay Jacobs announced Friday that he will retire in June 2018 after the school was enveloped by a slew of scandals.

"Earlier this week, I informed President Leath that I will step down as Director of Athletics on June 1, 2018, or sooner if my successor is in place," Jacobs wrote in a letter, according to the Auburn Plainsman's Will Sahlie, Sam Willoughby and Chip Brownlee. "I have come to this decision after a lot of prayer, deliberative discussions with my wife, Angie, and with the realization that it is time for a new leader of an incredible Department."

Jacobs acknowledged in his letter that the scandals made it difficult for him to continue with the Tigers. 

"The last several months have been a particularly difficult time," he wrote. "Across several sports, a series of controversies have arisen. They have begun to take their toll and have raised questions about why Auburn must endure such problems. As I have always done, I have worked my hardest and best to do what is right for Auburn."

According to ESPN.com's Tom Junod and Paula Lavigne, former softball player Alexa Nemeth sent a letter to Alabama governor Kay Ivey and Auburn officials alleging former head coach Clint Myers "knowingly let his son Corey Myers have relations and pursue relations with multiple members of the team."

Nemeth also alleged the program was "toxic" and "lacked any kind of institutional control," per Junod and Lavigne. 

After those allegations surfaced, the Auburn's men's basketball program became embroiled in another scandal when assistant coach Chuck Person was arrested as part of the FBI's probe into corruption and bribery in the sport. 

According to the Montgomery Advertiser's Matthew Stevens, Person was charged with six felonies after he "allegedly received $91,500 in bribery payments in a scheme to steer two unnamed Auburn players to certain agents and financial advisers." 

Four-star defensive tackle Coynis Miller announced Saturday he will suit up for the Auburn Tigers when the 2018 college football season opens. 

Keith Niebuhr of 247Sports first relayed word of Miller's decision and noted that he committed to the Tigers over Alabama and Florida. 

According to 247Sports, Miller is the 16th-ranked defensive tackle and 162nd-ranked player overall among all 2018 recruits. Furthermore, he graded out as the No. 4 recruit in Alabama and the top-ranked defensive tackle in the state. 

And while Miller's designation as a defensive tackle at a burly 6'1.5" and 300 pounds would seem to indicate he's more of a run-stuffer on the surface, film suggests he could eventually operate as a conventional 3-4 defensive end. 

Although he's not the quickest lineman in his class, Miller consistently flashes solid burst off the ball and packs an ability to quickly diagnose plays. As a result, he's able to blow up running plays in the backfield and pressure the quarterback to effective degrees. 

The Birmingham, Alabama, native will now hope those traits translate to success with the Tigers. However, it may be a year or two before Miller truly comes into his own.

While it's clear he has the skill set necessary to be a disruptive force at the next level, Miller will have to earn playing time along a crowded defensive front that is annually one of the nation's toughest.

          

Recruit information courtesy of 247Sports.com. 

After allegations arose that a 2016 Auburn football player didn't take his own exam, the school has hired a law firm to investigate. 

The school provided a statement in response to the allegation from a tutor, via Mark Schlabach, Tom Junod and Paula Lavigne of ESPN.com:

"It's simply not true. The person making the accusation is a part-time employee placed on administrative leave on Aug. 31 because of a dispute with a coworker. She is making claims not supported by facts, and based on what ESPN told us, she keeps changing her story. Neither she, her attorney nor our investigation have produced anything to support her claims."

The school also clarified who the investigation is regarding, via Josh Vitale of OANow: 

"The player for which we are conducting an investigation is not a member of the current team and was not a member of the team at the time of the allegation. He is a former player who came back to school to complete his degree. As you know from our statement he categorically denies the claim.

(...)

"We have no reason to think the allegation about the former student is true."

The tutor said a mentor in Auburn's Student-Athlete Support Services department took the exam for a football player, who later admitted to her that he did not take the test.

The tutor—who exposed the situation to ESPN's Outside the Lines—first became suspicious after seeing the player receive a perfect grade on the final exam. After alerting a supervisor, she was told her job would not be renewed.

The Auburn athletic department hired the law firm of Lightfoot, Franklin & White from Birmingham, Alabama, to review the incident.

Auburn has had similar violations with its football program in the past, most notably under former coach Gene Chizik. According to ESPN, up to nine players had their grades changed prior to winning the national championship in 2011.

The program has also self-reported seven secondary violations of NCAA rules from 2014-16, per James Crepea of AL.com.

Auburn used a big-play offense to pull away from Mississippi State with a 49-10 victory Saturday.

The team came through with six plays of 45 yards or more to move the football, which, combined with a shutdown defense, was enough for the easy conference win.

The Tigers move to 4-1 with the victory and 2-0 in the SEC while the Bulldogs fell to 3-2 with a second straight conference loss.

While Auburn's offense had been inconsistent this season, it was running smoothly in this one. Jarrett Stidham was 13-of-16 for 264 yards and two touchdowns, showing he could make a significant impact with few throws.

Kerryon Johnson shouldered a heavy load, following up his five-touchdown effort from last week with 116 rushing yards and three touchdowns.

Matthew Coca of CBS Sports made a bold statement about the offense:

If Auburn had a healthy Kerryon Johnson and the offense moved like this... they would have beaten Clemson by two scores.

— Matthew Coca (@matthewcoca) October 1, 2017

While the game wasn't necessarily filled with long, sustained drives, Auburn did take advantage of a few huge plays that either got into the end zone or set up scores.

Bob Carskadon of HailState.com described the difference early on:

At present, Auburn has 108 yards on two plays, 37 yards on the other 13. MSU, meanwhile, averaging 2.8 yards per play.

— Bob Carskadon (@bobcarskadon) September 30, 2017

Touchdown, Auburn. This one goes for 47 yards. Tigers are killing MSU with big plays.

— Bob Carskadon (@bobcarskadon) September 30, 2017

Eli Stove got in on the action in the second half to help fuel a seven-play, 99-yard drive:

The stove is hot! 🔥🔥🔥

Eli Stove hauls in a 57-yard pass from @Jarrett_Stidham and then runs around the end for 30 yards!#WarEagle pic.twitter.com/VlXLJjSKjI

— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) October 1, 2017

These plays helped the Tigers go up 21-3 early and 21-10 at halftime. The squad continued to pile it on in the second half with a few more 40-yard bombs to help pull away.

By the time Javaris Davis picked off Nick Fitzgerald and ran it back 37 yards for a touchdown, the home team was up 42-10. A 67-yard run from backup quarterback Malik Willis capped the rout.

Meanwhile, the Tigers defense refused to allow Mississippi State back in the game with some one-sided play:

Auburn's defensive line flat out dominating Mississippi State up front.

— Barrett Sallee 🇺🇸 (@BarrettSallee) September 30, 2017

https://twitter.com/LShute13/status/914287940443963392

Fitzgerald finished the game 13-of-33 for 157 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, adding only 56 yards on the ground. Aeris Williams couldn't do much more while totaling 49 yards on 15 carries.

The Bulldogs actually had more first downs than Auburn (18-14) but managed to go just 7-of-21 on third downs and 2-of-6 on fourth downs.

As Kevin Scarbinsky of AL.com noted, the Tigers are the only team in the country that hasn't allowed more than 14 points in a game this season. When the offense also plays as it did in this game, this will be a difficult team to beat.

Jim Dunaway of WIAT CBS broke down the difference between the two coaches:

Auburn’s Gus Malzahn is about to be 16-1 at Jordan-Hare when in AP Poll.

Dan Mullen is now 2-15 in ranked vs ranked games #MSUvsAUB

— Jim Dunaway (@jimdunaway) October 1, 2017

After facing three top-15 teams in a row during a brutal stretch, things get much easier for Mississippi State. The team is off next week and will follow it up with a home game against BYU, which fell to 1-4 with its fourth straight loss Friday.

Auburn will try to keep up its strong run through the SEC with a home game against Mississippi next Saturday.

Byron Cowart is no longer a member of the Auburn Tigers.

Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn confirmed to reporters Cowart left the program after Brandon Marcello of 247Sports reported the defensive lineman was granted his release. Cowart was a 5-star recruit and the No. 3 overall player in the 2015 recruiting class, per 247Sports.

However, Marcello said he "has not lived up to the hype" since arriving on campus as such a highly regarded player.

"Byron Cowart has come to me numerous times over the last couple of weeks disappointed in his playing time," Malzahn told reporters Tuesday, per Justin Ferguson of SEC Country. "Yesterday, he came to me and said he wants to quit and pursue other opportunities, so we wish him nothing but the best moving forward."

This comes after Cowart moved from defensive end to defensive tackle and added weight in an effort to "crack the rotation as a junior," per Marcello.

"I think he's settling in," Malzahn said of the position change in August, per Tom Green of AL.com. "In the spring, he started settling in. It's like anything else—you get more reps at it, the better you're going to be. He's shown at times that he can rush the passer from inside pretty efficiently."

Despite the adjustment, he has tallied just three total tackles through the first two games this season as a backup without consistent playing time. He also posted a mere six tackles in each of his first two collegiate seasons.

Auburn backup quarterback Sean White was arrested early Sunday morning in Auburn, Alabama, for appearing under the influence in public.

According to James Crepea of AL.com, records show White was booked into Lee County Jail and is being held on $500 bond.

The 21-year-old junior is the backup to Baylor transfer Jarrett Stidham, and he recently returned from a two-game suspension for undisclosed reasons.

Per Crepea, White is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 30.

White saw extensive action last season, throwing for 1,679 yards, nine touchdowns and three interceptions, while rushing for 163 yards and two touchdowns, in 11 games.

True freshman Malik Willis served as Stidham's backup while White was suspended this season, but the Tigers were hoping to redshirt him, according to Matthew Stevens of the Montgomery Advertiser.

The 2017 Auburn Tigers has an impressive roster. What's even more impressive are the players' names.

Watch above.

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Asa Martin has committed to Auburn, giving the Tigers one of top running backs in the 2018 class.

Keith Niebuhr of 247Sports provided news of the prospect's decision Thursday.  

Scout.com considers the 4-star recruit the No. 7 running back in the country and No. 169 player overall, as well as the top player at his position from the state of Alabama.

Martin has ideal size for a running back at 5'11 ½" and 200 pounds. While he could stand to add some weight to his frame, he already has solid strength that could allow him to be an every-down player in college.

Additionally, Martin has impressive quickness and vision that helps him to find a hole and get to it, allowing him to create big plays out of nothing. 

"I'm balanced, good speed, vision, and I can block really well," he said when describing himself, per Ryan Callahan of 247Sports.

This skill set could help him make an early contribution as a freshman.

Although it might be difficult for him to battle his way up a loaded depth chart at Auburn, other factors led to his decision.

"The school has probably been recruiting me the longest," Martin said in July, per Drew Champlin of AL.com. "It feels like home around there. I have a great relationship with [offensive coordinator] Coach [Chip] Lindsey and [running backs] Coach [Tim] Horton. What they do on offense is one of the best fits for me because we run some of the same stuff at Austin."

He will try to follow in the path of the other great running backs who have played for the Tigers in recent years, including Cameron Artis-Payne and Tre Mason.