Greg McElroy puts Auburn in preseason top-20 ahead of 2025 season
By Mark Kern
Published:
Greg McElroy is getting college football fans across the country ready for the 2025 season as he is giving his preseason top 25 teams. On his most recent edition of Always College Football, he broke down his team’s ranked from 25th to 11th.
One team that stood out was Auburn, who he has ranked 20th entering the start of the season. A big reason why McElroy is so high on the Tigers is that the team doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses.
“What I love is a well-rounded roster,” McElroy said of the Tigers. “They really have it across the board, there are very few weaknesses on the roster. Hugh Freeze has done a great job of recognizing what ‘I need to solidify’ in order to take this program to the next level.”
The Tigers’ defense was extremely good last year, helping to keep the team in games when the offense struggled for the majority of the year. This unit under has McElroy thinking it can be even better next year.
“Defensively, they were good at all 3 levels last season,” McElroy said. “D.J. Durkin is now going into his second year, so everybody should have a better understanding of how they need to attack the opposing offense. You have a star in the making in Keldric Faulk on the edge of the line of scrimmage. The secondary has several good cover guys. They had good players, but they actually may be better this year.”
The quarterback position was an issue last year for Auburn, and that is still a position of concern for McElroy said. In this year is Jackson Arnold, who had an up-and-down 2024 campaign at Oklahoma.
“What concerns me about Auburn is their quarterback, Jackson Arnold,” McElroy said. “This isn’t a question of talent. He has always had the goods. He always had the mobility to create with his legs if nothing is there. What plagued Auburn last year was turnovers. This team could not get out of their own way at times when it came to critical mistakes from the quarterback position.”
This is a huge season for Auburn and Freeze, as the team needs to take that next step. In his first 2 seasons, the Tigers are 11-14, which isn’t what the Auburn fans were expecting when Freeze was hired.
As McElroy said, this appears on paper to be the most complete team he has had at Auburn, and the expectations are definitely higher entering this year. The season opener will be a great test for the Tigers, as they have a difficult first game against Baylor.
