AUBURN — Tray Taylor, the fifth-year wide receiver Auburn football added to its roster last week, is not currently eligible to compete for the Tigers.
Head coach Alex Golesh said Monday, Aug. 24, that while Auburn's compliance office has deemed Taylor eligible to practice, "as the back and forth of the TROs and the NCAA go," he's not yet eligible to play.
A 2022 high-school graduate, Auburn added Taylor to its roster in August and noted he'd been granted an additional year of eligibility within the month.
"The reason to bring him in — and we recruited Tray a couple years ago when he was coming out of Tyler — the skill set as a returner was the most intriguing piece," Golesh said. "I thought coming in, honestly, the biggest value you have that doesn't take as much schematic work would be just a return guy, as a kick- and a punt-returner. He was as dynamic the last two years both at Coastal and at Troy as a returner. Hopefully, as he gets cleared, we'll be able to use him in that way."
Taylor, who's listed at 5-foot-6 and 150 pounds, spent two seasons between Troy (2025) and Coastal Carolina (2024) after beginning his college career at Tyler Junior College. At the Division I level, Taylor's caught 48 passes for 761 yards and four touchdowns. He's also logged 16 carries for another 110 yards and a touchdown.
As a return man, Taylor caught 12 kicks and six punts in his lone year at Coastal Carolina, logging 250 return yards.
"He's come in here and kind of gained everybody's respect really quickly," Golesh said. "He's a cool cat. I really like Tray, so that was the reason we thought, as a return guy, (he) could certainly help us. We'll see as he integrates into the offense how he could help us. We've got to get over the hurdle of having him eligible for competition here first."
Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at acole@gannett.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @colereporter.To support Adam's work, please subscribe to the Montgomery Advertiser.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Will Auburn football's latest roster addition play? Alex Golesh explains
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