Auburn football recruiting: Weekend wrap-up

After its two biggest recruiting weekends before National Signing Day, Auburn still has some work to do if the Tigers want finish with their top targets down the stretch. Auburn is looking to close with one more offensive lineman, a defensive lineman and a safety.

The Tigers are recruiting five-star Rashaan Evans to play the "star" position, so he would fill the spot at safety. Four-star defensive end Andrew Williams would be the ideal guy to fill the defensive line spot, and four-star offensive tackle Braden Smith would fill the void at offensive line. Auburn leads for Evans by what seems like a rather large margin. Williams has never really named a leader, but the sense is Auburn holds a slight margin over Clemson, Ole Miss and South Carolina. Williams is visiting Clemson this weekend after originally being scheduled to visit Ole Miss. Smith is a quiet kid, so getting a read on him is difficult. The thought is that Auburn holds a slight edge, or is at least a front-runner alongside TCU and Texas A&M. Smith's sister is on the track and field team at TCU and Texas A&M has been recruiting him from the beginning, so Auburn is going to have work really hard down the stretch to get Smith on the Plains.

The Tigers have a couple more players who they would more than likely accept a commitment from even if they landed Evans, Williams and Smith, and they would undoubtedly accept if they missed. Those players are four-star defensive end and LSU commit Davon Godchaux, four-star safety Steven Parker and three-star safety John Bonney, a Texas commit.

Godchaux would be a really tough land for Auburn. He grew up an LSU fan and it's really tough to pull kids out of Louisiana, especially when LSU really wants them. Godchaux is a bigger, more powerful end than Williams, who is more of a speed guy. Godchaux had a good visit to Auburn last weekend and the Tigers feel like they have a decent shot at landing him. I believe Auburn would accept his commitment even if it does land Williams because the two would compliment each other well.

Bonney is another longshot for the Tigers -- he has been committed to Texas since September and has remained firm in his commitment through the transition from Mack Brown to Charlie Strong. He visited Auburn last weekend and by all indications had a good time and likes the program and coaches. If he does end up on the Plains, it would be a surprise in more than one way as it doesn't seem Bonney has a fully committable offer yet. Auburn likes Evans and Parker more at safety.

Parker has really flown under the radar for such a highly ranked prospect (No. 53 overall player in Rivals100). Auburn has remained high on him throughout and he is scheduled to visit Auburn next weekend. The thought has always been that he would sign with Oklahoma, but he hasn't committed and is still taking all his visits. He's at least interested enough in Auburn to give the Tigers the last official before signing day, so he's at least going to give Auburn a chance to make its case. Auburn would probably take Parker and Evans. Parker fits more as a true, rangy safety with good ball skills while Evans fits perfectly at star.

There are plenty of other prospects with non-committable offers from Auburn and could wind up in the class if the Tigers whiff on all of their top targets, which is unlikely. We will touch on those prospects sometime before Signing Day if need be.

As far as current commits go, Auburn feels good about all of them, and most are done with visits. The one commit getting the most talk as far as wavering is five-star running back Roc Thomas. Thomas has said he is firm in his commitment to Auburn, and he doesn't have or plan to have any other visits scheduled before Signing Day. Alabama has put the full-court press on Thomas and hasn't done much in terms of pulling him away from Auburn. Thomas has formed a special bond with fellow commits and the coaches, and it would be a huge surprise if he ended up flipping to Alabama. This no T.J. Yeldon situation: Everyone knew Yeldon was going to 'Bama, it was just a matter of when. But, understandably, with the way the Yeldon recruitment went, Auburn fans are justified in being nervous until pen meets paper, but they shouldn't worry.

Four-star corner Nicholas Ruffin could possibly take a visit to Georgia. New Bulldogs defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt was the lead recruiter for Ruffin at FSU and is trying to at least get him on campus for an official. That doesn't seem likely, but even if it happens, Auburn doesn't seem to worried and fully expects Ruffin to be in orange and blue.

As far as other commits go, there has been little talk of any wavering. Most have said they are 100 percent committed to Auburn are done with visits. Auburn has 21 commitments so far in the 2014 class. All commits are listed below with their commitment status below and we hope to have an update on how the official visits went this weekend, mainly the visit of Evans. Until then, War Eagle.

Signed Letter of Intent

5* WR D'haquille Williams

3* TE Chris Laye

3* OL Xavier Dampeer

4* S Derrick Moncrief

4* ATH Stanton Truitt

Committed - Not Signed

5* LB Tre Williams - Solid Verbal

5* RB Roc Thomas - Solid Verbal

4* DE DaVonte Lambert- Solid Verbal

4* DB Stephen Roberts - Solid Verbal

4* DT Dalvon Stuckey - Solid Verbal

4* DB Nicholas Ruffin - Solid Verbal

4* DT Dontavius Russell - Solid Verbal

4* QB Sean White - Solid Verbal

4* DE Justin Thornton - Solid Verbal

4* CB Kalvaraz Bessent - Solid Verbal

3* RB/FB Kamryn Pettway - Solid Verbal

3* TE Jakell Mitchell - Solid Verbal

3* LB Deshaun Davis - Solid Verbal

3* DE Raashed Kennion - Solid Verbal

3* ATH Myron Burton - Solid Verbal

2* DT Devaroe Lawrence - Solid Verbal

Note: All rankings and positions come from Rivals.com.