Phenix City 4-star offensive tackle Javion Cohen was planning to reveal on Early National Signing Day next Wednesday whether he would be playing college football at Alabama or Auburn. As college football recruiting fans will know, that’s not at all unusual.

But Auburn apparently robbed him of that opportunity.

The Tigers reportedly pulled their scholarship offer to Cohen because he took multiple visits to Alabama while being verbally committed to Auburn. However, Cohen says that isn’t the full story.

Based on the timing of his text messages to Gus Malzahn, Cohen notified Auburn on Sunday that he was going to de-commit and then commit to Alabama on Dec. 18. Upon learning that, Auburn then pulled his scholarship.

Most people will probably say this doesn’t matter, and at the end of the day, it doesn’t. As the tweet below indicates, Cohen is still going to play football at Alabama regardless of whether he chose to or if Auburn pulled his scholarship before he made his decision.

But the timing of all this rightfully matters to Cohen, and it certainly could effect Auburn. The Tigers don’t want it to appear like they lost a recruit to its biggest rival. While there are worse things, Auburn would like to avoid that perception.

So Auburn’s actions are understandable, but assuming Cohen’s messages have accurate time stamps, one can also feel bad for the offensive tackle, who lost his right to announce his commitment in his own way.

Rather than waiting until next week, Cohen went ahead and announced his commitment to the Crimson Tide on Wednesday:

https://twitter.com/javiocohen/status/1204890857637318656