There was only one team in the country which signed more players than Auburn on National Signing Day, and only one other that cracked 30.

How Auburn landed the signatures of 32 players, while staying within the newly initiated SEC rules and maintaining its consensus top five national status, was borne out of a combination of shrewd recruiting and necessity.

The Tigers needed quality and quantity. And from all indications, they did just that.

“They just put together a solid class and mixed in guys of need,” said Chad Simmons, Scout.com’s Southeastern recruiting manager. “He’s got a good mixture of outstanding athletes, to physical linemen, to guys that can play the game of football. I think just a great group talent-wise from top to bottom.”

In one fell swoop, Auburn, for now, appears to have eliminated the well-documented depth problems that plagued it throughout 2009.

After wide receiver Tim Hawthorne left the team before the Outback Bowl, Auburn carried just 73 scholarship players — 12 below the NCAA maximum of 85, a number most major programs have no problem reaching. Even that total was skewed on the high end, as 13 of those players didn’t see the field all season and three others — punter Clinton Durst, holder Clayton Crofoot and wideout John Cubelic — weren’t scholarship players until the beginning of the season.

Now, Auburn finds itself on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Auburn graduated 11 scholarship seniors, lost three scholarship players to career-ending injuries and one other left the team (DE Cameron Henderson), bringing the total down to 58 before a single player faxed in his National Letter of Intent.

Five of Auburn’s 32 signees are already enrolled and on campus and will participate in spring practice. Because Auburn put only 21 players from the 2009 signing class on scholarship, all five counted back to last year, allowing Auburn to sign the 27 other players for 2010.

Recently introduced SEC bylaws allow schools to sign 28 players to Letters of Intent and the NCAA allows just 25 to be on scholarship.

If the Tigers are able to reach that maximum with the current class, they would have as many as 89 scholarship players — four over the NCAA limit.

Gene Chizik said Wednesday that he’s certainly abreast of the numbers situation.

“We’ve got that all covered,” Chizik said. “Again, it goes back to the blueprint. We’re very direct and up front with everyone that we recruit and what their situation is and they know that going in.”

There are a multitude of possibilities and likely situations that makes this potential number-crunch a non-issue.

First, and most likely, a number of Auburn’s recruits could fail to qualify academically. Six players from the 2009 class failed to qualify and a total of 15 didn’t make the cut from 2006-08.

The likelihood of that many players failing to qualify, though, would contradict what Chizik said in November about how Auburn was going about its recruiting. With Auburn’s depth issues coming to a breaking point late in the season, he said Auburn couldn’t afford to recruit at-risk players.

“Strategically, we’re going to have to be right on with every decision we make recruiting-wise,” Chizik said at the time. “When we’re bringing them in. How many we bring in. We’ve got a lot of scholarships to fill.”

There are, of course, other ways Auburn can hit 85.

A handful of Auburn’s current signees have likely been made aware that they could be forced to grayshirt the 2010 season. A grayshirted player can either pay his own way for fall semester or not enroll until winter. Either way, the player would not be able to associate himself with the team during the 2010 season and his eventual scholarship would count for the 2011 class.

Redshirt freshman tight end Robert Cooper was originally intended to grayshirt the 2009 season, but was rewarded his scholarship early because of Auburn’s depth problems. Chizik has not mentioned any potential grayshirt players and none of Auburn’s 32 signees have mentioned the possibility to Auburn’s three recruiting Web sites.

Attrition from the current roster is another likely scenario.

Ten players have either left the team, been kicked off or had injuries end their careers since the end of the 2008 season. The status of safety Zac Etheridge (neck) remains questionable heading into 2010 and it’s become an absolute rarity in college football to avoid offseason attrition.

Regardless, this is a problem Chizik will trade any day for the one Auburn battled through in 2009.

| 737-2561