A 4-star Alabama football commit visiting Auburn is not good news for Kalen DeBoer

Ranked No. 60 in the country, Nolan Wilson is the sixth-highest-ranked player in Alabama’s 2026 recruiting class. The four-star defensive lineman from Picayune, Mississippi, committed in July and is a key piece of a group that ranks No. 3 in the country. Now, it seems he could potentially be on the move to Alabama’s archrival. 

Wilson will reportedly be in attendance at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday when Auburn hosts Kentucky for a visit with the Tigers. The 6-foot-4, 250-pounder also recently took a gameday visit to Miami, and is on major flip watch for Alabama, still just over a month away from the early signing period. 

Kalen DeBoer can’t lose Wilson to Auburn

Losing Wilson to Auburn wouldn’t necessarily be disastrous for Alabama’s 2026 class. It would risk falling out of the top five nationally, and the defensive line is always a position of need in college football. However, the reason DeBoer can’t lose this recruiting battle to the Tigers is that the odds are so heavily in his program’s favor. 

Miami is on stable ground as a program, continuing to trend up under Mario Cristobal, who has activated a massive donor base in South Florida and has that program headed for national championship contention. So, Miami flipping Wilson would hurt, but be understandable. 

Auburn, however, is anything but stable. The Tigers are on their second head coach since firing Gus Malzahn, and Hugh Freeze is already on a scorching hot seat in just his third year. Freeze has whiffed on a transfer portal quarterback twice, and last week finally benched Jackson Arnold for Stanford transfer Ashton Daniels. 

Daniels is unlikely to save Freeze’s job, though. Even with other SEC powerhouse jobs open at LSU and Florida, it’s hard to imagine Freeze holding on beyond this year. If he does, he’ll be a lame-duck coach, clearly on his last legs. 

Even in an era when players can move as freely as their coaches, it’s hard to recruit to a place with so much uncertainty. That’s been reflected in Freeze’s 2026 recruiting class. He has just 14 commits, ranking 32nd in the country after landing consecutive top 10 classes in 2024 and 2025. 

Auburn spent big on high school recruiting at the start of Freeze’s tenure, and while the record won’t show it, they’re reaping the rewards with a talented roster. If Freeze ever did get the quarterback position right, the Tigers would be a major threat. So, Alabama needs to keep Auburn down and force the program to enter a coaching search in a year when it is the third-best job opening in the SEC and fourth-best nationally, which is almost unheard of.