Auburn’s JaTarvious Whitlow in transfer portal leaves questions about Tigers offense

Auburn Tigers running back JaTarvious Whitlow has entered the transfer portal, leaving us a ton of questions about what’s going on with Auburn’s offense.

Auburn’s leading rusher is in the transfer portal.

On National Signing Day, Auburn’s leading rusher, JaTarvious Whitlow entered the portal and leaves the Tigers offense with a big hole to fill. Al.com’s Matt Zenitz was first to report the transfer portal news.

Whitlow played 24 games for Auburn over the last two seasons, rushing for a total of 1,550 yards on 306 attempts for 16 touchdowns. He also had 21 receptions for 279 yards and two touchdowns in his career. Whitlow is coming off a season that saw him run for 763 yards and 10 touchdowns, so his decision to leave is puzzling as he was poised to be a focal point of the offense.

Whitlow was supposed to be the featured back heading into his junior season in 2020. He was first on the Tigers’ running back depth chart entering spring practice, ahead of players like redshirt senior Malik Miller, junior Shaun Shivers and sophomore D.J. Williams.

Of course, we can’t overlook Auburn’s top signee from the 2020 recruiting class in running back Tank Bigsby. He enrolled early at Auburn in January and was expected to compete with Whitlow for the starting job in the Tigers offense. Bigsby is the No. 39 overall recruit, No. 4 running back and the No. 6 prospect out of Georgia, according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings. This could be a huge factor as well.

We can speculate on a lot of things, but one thing is certain. Former Arkansas Razorbacks head coach Chad Morris is now running the Auburn offense, as opposed to having head coach Gus Malzahn call plays. Before arriving in Auburn, Morris took a bad situation in Fayetteville and made it worse. Perhaps Whitlow doesn’t think he can thrive in Morris’ up-tempo spread offense?

With Bo Nix entering his sophomore season at quarterback, one would think Whitlow would be more inclined to stay, given the potential in Auburn’s offensive production. Regardless, this is not a good look for Auburn, as the Tigers’ best offensive playmaker doesn’t seem to want to play his college football down on The Plains anymore.

This is one of those entries into the transfer portal that catches the entire college football world off-guard. Whitlow had a great chance at being All-SEC in his junior season with the 2020 Tigers. While he could still end up transferring to an SEC team, he’ll likely have to sit out a year unless he can prove it to be a hardship situation. Is it that bad to play football in Morris’ offense? Wow.

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