What Auburn football's Hugh Freeze said about transfers Jyaire Shorter, Larry Nixon III
LaGRANGE — Auburn football has been one of the country's most active teams in the transfer portal since coach Hugh Freeze was hired in November, and one of its busier days in the last few months came Tuesday.
The Tigers added two former North Texas players in wide receiver Jyaire Shorter and linebacker Larry Nixon III. Both players joined the Mean Green as members of the Class of 2018, and each redshirted their freshman years before having career-best seasons in 2022.
"Man, (I'm) excited about both those kids," Freeze said at an AMBUSH event in LaGrange on Wednesday. "Jyaire Shorter, I think, is a deep-ball threat. He’s proven he can go get the ball. He gives us some length and catch radius that we need for what we want to do offensively."
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Shorter, who hauled in 23 passes for 628 yards and 11 touchdowns last season, had previously dealt with injuries before breaking out in 2022. He appeared in two games in 2021 before an injury shut him down, and the same happened the year prior after seeing action in just three contests.
"Those are the difficult deals in recruiting a kid for one week," Freeze said of Shorter's injury history. "Those are uncomfortable and you have to make a gut call on some of those. Obviously, he came on his official visit and went through everything with our docs. We, obviously, are optimistic and believe that he’ll be 100%. But that’s absolutely always a concern.
"It seems like there’s a lot of that with some of the portal guys that you have to kind of wade through and decide if the juice is worth the squeeze, so to speak."
Shorter's big-play ability was enough for Freeze to overlook the injury concerns.
"If we can get him 20 catches and 10 of them are touchdowns, that's pretty good," Freeze said. "Hopefully, we can get him more. I thought his explosive playmaking ability was impressive, and maybe something we really don't have, or don't have proven yet at that outside position. ... He's got that capability, so now we just have to get him healthy and hopefully get some consistency and some of that playmaking that you see on field."
As for Nixon, who accumulated 105 total tackles last season, Freeze thinks he could push Ole Miss transfer Austin Keys and Wesley Steiner, among others, for a starting role at linebacker.
"Just his passion, the way he ran to the football and the way he's a solid tackler," Freeze said. "You just can't have enough of those guys. And I think he's going to come in and compete for a starting position. I really do."
Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on Twitter @rich_silva18.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn football's Hugh freeze talks Jyaire Shorter, Larry Nixon III
