Deuce Knight leaving Auburn Tigers for transfer portal already validating what fans feared most with new head coach Alex Golesh

Five star QB Deuce Knight leaving highlights major issues Alex Golesh will have in building a good roster for Auburn

Travis May — College Football Managing Editor
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The worst fears for Auburn Tigers fans this offseason have been realized. Five-star freshman quarterback Deuce Knight is entering the transfer portal.

This news comes after a flurry of other transfer portal announcements from Auburn players over the last few weeks. The final nail in the coffin was also likely heavily related to the sudden departure of star wide receiver Cam Coleman on Monday.

And yes, this does mean that all three of Auburn’s top quarterbacks from the 2025 season have now left the program (Jackson Arnold, Ashton Daniels, and Deuce Knight).

Deuce Knight leaves Auburn for the Transfer Portal

The entire Auburn fanbase and the Tigers organization knew there would be significant changes this offseason amid the firing of Hugh Freeze and the hiring of new head coach Alex Golesh. However, it’s unlikely that anyone could have foreseen the massive departure of around 30 players, including some of the best talents on the roster.

It’s one thing to lose depth pieces and a couple of unproven young players. It’s another entirely to lose half of the Auburn starting defense, the team’s best wide receiver, the most experienced offensive lineman, and now the future quarterback as well.

Golesh and his new staff can try to paint this any way they want, but it’s hard for fans, media, or anyone who cares about college football to look at this situation with much hope.

Knight was supposed to be the bright star that the program was going to build around. He was the stud five-star who took the first snap of his first career start for 75 yards to the house on a ridiculous rushing touchdown.

Knight was the 6-4, 220-pound monster of an athlete who would carry this team. Now he’s gone, and Golesh has some major questions to answer about how he will build a good roster.

Will Alex Golesh land and build around his former QB Byrum Brown?

Now that the worst fears of Auburn fans have been realized, Golesh and the Tigers organization have to answer the pivotal question, “What now?”

The easy answer is that Auburn likely turns now to landing former USF quarterback Byrum Brown, who just put up an absurdly impressive 2025 college football season.

Brown scored 42 total touchdowns, racked up over 3,000 passing yards, and tallied over 1,000 rushing yards in just 12 games for the USF Bulls this past year. He’s obviously one of the more talented quarterbacks in all of college football and just announced that he was entering the transfer portal on Dec. 22.

Golesh and Auburn’s new staff need to make sure they can bring in Brown if they want any hope of competing in 2026. Still, landing the quarterback is just a tiny first step in the battle that will be the 2025-26 offseason for this Tigers program. Even then, what’s the answer beyond 2026 when Brown is gone?

Can Golesh possibly replace talents up and down the roster to find success for this upcoming season? Can he recruit anywhere near the level that even Freeze was doing? That’s an absolute must in the SEC just to be competitive in games at the highest levels of college football.

Golesh has experience recruiting in the SEC from his time at Tennessee in 2021 and 2022. He has found success even with limited resources at South Florida, nearly making the College Football Playoff this season. However, that doesn’t mean that Auburn fans feel good about the hot mess that is the Tigers’ roster right now. Golesh and company have a wild amount of work to do. Losing Knight to the portal just made the hill they have to climb even higher.

We’ll be back with more Auburn Tigers coverage here at A to Z Sports soon! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!

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