Gus Malzahn sees a ‘lot of speed’ in Auburn’s early signing period signees

Gus Malzahn is looking to build off of a trip to the SEC Championship Game this season, and the early signing period produced a strong group of signees for the Auburn Tigers.

Auburn signed a total of 15 players on Wednesday with a number of 4-star recruits. It is definitely an impressive group that has Auburn’s 2018 class ranked as No. 10 in the nation. As of now, it is the third ranked class in the SEC behind Georgia and Alabama.

Malzahn took time to discuss the signees, and he said the speed of this class is something that stands out to him:

“Very excited about the first part of our class,” said Malzahn. “Look at the class, things that stand out to me are very athletic, lot of speed. Another class with high character young men, a lot of them are honor roll.”

Two of the impressive recruits he took time to highlight are RB Asa Martin and QB/ATH Joey Gatewood. In Martin, Malzahn sees a versatile back with a lot of similarities to Kerryon Johnson:

“Very versatile, reminds us a lot of Kerryon Johnson,” explained Malzahn. “We’re very excited for him.”

He also highlighted Gatewood’s loyalty to the Tigers throughout a variety of changes to Auburn’s staff and clarified his comparison of Gatewood to Auburn legend Cam Newton:

“From my stand point, he stayed loyal to us the whole time,” Malzahn said. “We had a coordinator change, he stayed with us. He’s a very big guy, can run, very athletic…Really its the physical tools he has. There’s only one Cam Newton, I think everybody knows that, but just from if he walked in the room he’d look like Cam Newton.”

Despite the impressive haul of players from the early signing period, Malzahn indicated that the Tigers are still looking for a big-time TE and an impact OL to add to their 2018 class.

Here is a list of all 15 Wednesday signees:

• Joey Gatewood, 4-star QB/ATH, Jacksonville, FL
• Quindarious Monday, 4-star ATH, Atlanta, GA
• Seth Williams, 4-star WR, Cottondale, AL
• Zakoby McClain, 4-star OLB, Valdosta, GA
• Asa Martin, 4-star RB, Decatur, AL
• Christian Tutt, 4-star CB, Thomson, GA
• Jamien Sherwood, 4-star S, Jensen Beach, FL
• Michael Harris, 4-star ILB, Tucker, GA
• Kayode Oladele, 4-star SDE, Hialeah, FL
• Shaun Shivers, 4-star APB, Hollywood, FL
• Jalil Irvin, 4-star OG, Stone Mountain, GA
• Daquan Newkirk, 3-star DT, Perkinston, MS
• Shedrick Jackson, 3-star WR, Hoover, AL
• Kameron Stutts, 3-star OT, Killen, AL
• Josh Marsh, 3-star OLB, Decatur, AL

You can hear Malzahn’s full interview here.

Paul Harvey

Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.