Kenyatta Watson, assistant GM
“I call Kenyatta the king of Atlanta.”
Redmond noted that Watson’s relationship with Auburn’s Eric Singleton Jr. began when Watson coached the junior receiver’s team when Singleton was 8 years old.
“He was hired very strategically for all of those relationships, which stretch back more than a decade with kids, going from 8 to 18 and then into college. They pay off dividends, especially when you have an eye for evaluation and how a kid has grown over that amount of time.
“Couple that with the ability to evaluate college tape and leading the charge once players are identified from a portal perspective, and the high school ranks, figuring out who are the key individuals in that student-athlete’s circle of influence.
“Our ‘it’ is to build a 12-month plan to recruit the tail off of every player we think can help us, and every individual who’s going to be part of that circle of trust or influence who is going to help that student-athlete make a decision. Families are way more heavily involved maybe than they’ve ever been in the decision-making process so having somebody like Kenyatta is incredibly vital.”
Ryan Smith, assistant GM of player personnel
”Ryan was the general manager at Georgia Southern and at the Group of Five level, you have to wear multiple hats: compliance, graphic design, creative oversight, on-campus recruiting, and if you’re lucky, at the end of the day, you get to watch a little tape. My experience at Middle Tennessee State is very similar so I know what it means to wear all those hats, and I know the type of individuals who have success at that level, what all they do to be successful.
“This is his third stint at Auburn. He oversees the day-to-day operations of the personnel office, identifying the players who need to have evaluation films cut up, moving players from certain levels of evaluation up to the coaches, coordinators, myself and the head coach for evaluation. That’s how a student-athlete makes his way into a committed list.
“We’re lucky to have him, he’s always great to work with and he knows this place inside and out. He knows what works at Auburn and where the relationships are traditionally in the recruiting space here at Auburn, so that’s great.”
Jovon Hubbard, assistant GM of player personnel
“Hub is going to help us out predominantly with D-line recruiting, working with Vontrell King-Williams. There’s a close-knit relationship there as well and knowing and understanding Coach Freeze, having been with him at Liberty. He’s an elite human with an eye for talent who has a lot of capacity, having worn several hats at Liberty.
“He’s going to help us in the day-to-day communication plans as well with his ability to build and maintain relationships, pushing our coaches to having those daily interactions, whether it’s FaceTime at practice, or call nights in the building, making sure they have an organized text plan, working with graphic design to put names on the back of jerseys and personalized graphics wishing them good luck, and then targeting student-athletes to come to specific games.
“We’re pushing for specific targets to arrive on campus at specific times to unveil to them the plan moving forward of what it will look like for them to be a recruited student-athlete here.
“Hub is going to help us out in an immense way, and I truly love having him here in the building.”
Ethan Johnson, senior director of recruiting and development
“You couldn’t come up with somebody who’s worn more hats than Ethan Johnson. He’s our catch-all from an administrative standpoint. If I were hiring an athletic director, I would hire Ethan Johnson. He does an unbelievable job from an organization, communication and execution standpoint in terms of what our standard is for this department as it pertains to our summer camps, ensuring that the experience for campers and their families is top-notch.
“There’s about 25,000 things that Ethan does on a daily basis. He’s a wizard. Ethan just knows. He’s worked for some incredible coaches. He was David Cutcliffe’s right-hand man at Duke for a number of years in the personnel and recruiting space and was with Coach Freeze at Liberty and knows what he expects. He does an incredible job getting our coaches organized for the road for recruitment. He works with compliance daily to ensure we’re within the rules and we’re maximizing our opportunities to spend time with student-athletes and their families.
“He works with Coach Freeze’s schedule and what we call our attack calendar moving toward earning their commitments in the spring, summer and in the fall. Ethan wears a ton of hats and does so many things for us, including helping onboard our incoming student-athletes and he’s a direct liaison with academics.
Tim Baggett, director of scouting
“Tim works on many of our projects from NFL draft reports, analyzing spring camp and combine numbers of our student-athletes, pouring through data. Tim oversees a lot of the directing of the initial scouting and identification process at all levels.
“For example, let’s say there’s a high school kid from the Atlanta area, he’s a 6-1 corner and he ran a 4.3 40-yard dash at a camp. Maybe he has a couple offers from some smaller schools. That starts an identification process that triggers sending names to our assistant GMs in player personnel. They approve the highlight. From there, we get film cut up in our eval system, which we ship off to our coaches. Our coaches evaluate it, then it kicks up to me as well as our coordinators for a final review and, of course, Coach Freeze for final submission.”
Aaron Pittard and Grant Miller, assistant directors of player personnel
“Both of those individuals oversee several positions. They’re the directors of player personnel at their position, working with the O-line, linebackers, tight ends, quarterbacks, receivers. They’re living in those silos, making sure we’re identifying in our footprint the best players who play those skill positions. We want to make sure that we’re on top of our big skill (offensive line) from a national perspective.
“You have to live those O-line and D-line positions to a certain degree. They have to know what we’re looking for with schematic fits as well. We’re a 3-4 defense base. You’ve got to have interior nose guys on the D-line. Those guys are living those positions daily, passing up those names to Tim and then up through our chain of command.”
Rex Hogan, director of college scouting
“Rex has spent more than 22 years in the National Football League, most recently as the assistant general manager of the New York Jets. Rex brings an immense amount of experience to this in helping us with the portal identification process. There’s more that I can learn and more that our staff can learn, so bringing in Rex to help us with the evaluations and valuation side of things with our current roster. Rex is a third-party eye to what we do and can offer a differentiating opinion that can lead to further discussions to what we really need to do financially or from a roster management standpoint. It’s going to bring another layer of eyes from the NFL perspective to help us project our own roster and portal identification as well.
“The more time you spend in player personnel and watching tape, the greater your Rolodex becomes. Rex can pull up more than 20 years of experience in the National Football League for what does and does not translate, from guys they’ve hit on and guys they’ve missed on.”
Bianca Webb, assistant GM of on-campus recruiting, Reilly Wooten, on-campus recruiting coordinator, Heiress Hodges, on-campus recruiting coordinator, Haylee Brown, on-campus recruiting assistant
“Those women do an unbelievable job. They know Auburn inside and out with Bianca and Reilly being graduates. Having those key relationships in town, running events, creating memorable atmospheres. They make concerted efforts to get prospective student-athletes on campus and changing up the atmosphere, bringing a different vibe to our building. That’s placed on their shoulders from an on-campus recruiting perspective, and they do a killer job of it.”
Once all the information is gathered and analyzed, final decisions rest with the head coach.
“You bring in all these opinions, you stir it up in a ‘gumbo of evaluation’ and it helps us as decision makers, our coaches and Coach Freeze to take in all the information and then make a decision that is best for our roster,” Redmond said.
“Ultimately Coach Freeze has the final call and say in that and he’s dang good at it, so we’re lucky we work for a head coach who understands and values these positions. He is the most dialed in and in tune with this side of things as a coach that I’ve been around in a long time.
“I’m honored to serve with these guys and be part of this institution because there’s something to be said about running out of that tunnel wearing that Auburn logo on your chest that’s pretty special.”
