Ex-LSU linebacker Xavier Atkins has transferred to Auburn via the NCAA transfer portal.
Atkins played in five games totaling 31 snaps for LSU during his true freshman season in 2024. He’ll look to compete for playing time in Auburn’s defensive unit right away in 2025.
Atkins was a highly-touted recruit out of high school, coming in as a four-star recruit in the 2024 recruiting class according to the On3 Industry Rankings, which is a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all four primary recruiting media services. He was the No. 24 linebacker and No. 309 player overall.
Atkins enters an Auburn Tigers program that finished 5-7 overall under second-year head coach Hugh Freeze. They are 11-14 overall under his guidance, meaning 2025 will be a pivotal season for Freeze and his coaching staff.
After missing a bowl game for the second time in three seasons, Atkins aims to help guide the Tigers back to postseason contention.
The Tigers participated in the Music City Bowl following the 2023 season but fell short in that matchup. Prior to that, Auburn had an impressive streak of eight consecutive bowl appearances, starting with the 2013 BCS National Championship game.
For LSU, they finished the regular season 8-4 after being ranked as high as No. 8 in the country during the season. They’ll play Baylor in the Kinder’s Texas Bowl on New Year’s Eve.
The transfer portal officially opened on Monday, December 9, 2024. Over the 2023-24 academic year, more than 2,800 FBS scholarship players added their names to the NCAA transfer database. After accounting for those who withdrew or declared for the professional draft, the final count of transfers stood at 2,707.
According to On3’s Pete Nakos, this means approximately 25 percent of all FBS scholarship players entered the transfer portal in just one year.
