Auburn Football: Top 5 recruiting targets for National Signing Day
5. Bamidele Olaseni (OT/Garden City C.C.) — 4 Stars
Arguably Auburn’s biggest priority in shoring up their recruiting class is signing a couple of more offensive linemen.
Currently, the Tigers only have two offensive linemen signed in this class, both of whom are guards – four-star Keiondre Jones and three-star Justin Osborne. Identifying a couple of more linemen, particularly at offensive tackle, has been a main area of focus since the early signing period.
Auburn returns a load of experience on the offensive line next season with all five starters returning and all five being rising seniors. The Tigers struggled up-front to open up holes in the running game and to protect Jarrett Stidham, but the continued continuity and the natural progression that comes with experience should bode well in 2019.
What that also means, however, is that Auburn is set to lose all five of their starters on the offensive line after next season, which will challenge their depth heading into 2020. One way to compound that would be to hit the JUCO market and identify a player who could provide some quality depth right away while also competing for a starting job in 2020, giving the Tigers somewhat of experience up front.
Bamidele Olaseni is a four-star prospect coming out of Garden City Community College. He’s originally from London. At 6-foot-8 and 330 pounds, Olaseni is an intimidating presence with a lot of power that could be utilized immediately to bolster Auburn’s running game.
Olaseni will have two years of eligibility left, and could also potentially take a redshirt year in 2019 to allow him to potentially start for two seasons after Auburn graduates their entire offensive line. Olaseni hasn’t played organized football for very long, so he might benefit from a redshirt year, anyway.
Olaseni officially visited Auburn in December; the only other program he has visited to date is Utah, but that could change in the next couple of weeks. He holds offers from several other power-five programs, including Nebraska, Ohio State, and Texas.