Auburn RB to transfer after school botched his redshirt count

Running back Asa Martin played more games than Auburn claimed he had at one point.

Auburn running back Asa Martin announced Saturday he would be transferring from the school after just one season with the Tigers. Martin, a true freshman in 2018, played in five games for Auburn this season, his fifth reportedly coming against Mississippi State on Oct. 6.

Martin’s situation in 2018 was a little weird, mainly because his coaches apparently burned his redshirt by accident.

Per AL.com, when Martin entered Auburn’s game against MSU, he had already played in four games for the Tigers. The NCAA recently passed a rule allowing true freshman to play in up to four games and still earn a redshirt.

AL.com spoke with Martin’s mother, Sharay Harris, and she said she’d told Auburn offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey before the game that using him against MSU would burn his redshirt year. There’s been an error on the school’s participation chart, per the site, that didn’t account for Martin having appeared in a game against Arkansas on Sept. 22:

As of Thursday afternoon, the team’s online participation chart still didn’t correctly list Martin as having played in the Arkansas game. It’s unclear if the participation error on the website was something that the coaching staff believed to be true in the weeks that followed the game on Sept. 22.

Martin also appeared in a mid-November game against Liberty. By that point, the redshirt was already burned.

Auburn coaches were apparently under the impression that before the Mississippi State game, Martin had only played in three games, not four.

“After the Mississippi State game is when another assistant coach said that he wanted to redshirt Asa,” Harris said via the newspaper. “At this point, he had played five games.”

”… I’m just blown away, because Asa and I and his dad already knew that Asa’s redshirt had already been burned in the Mississippi State game.”

The new redshirt rule was widely viewed as a positive one when passed, since it can do lots of great things like keeping freshmen invested, taking the pressure off them a bit by letting them play lower-stakes games, and giving teams more chances to develop them. But a coaching staff botching a redshirt by counting wrong was not an expected outcome.

Whoever gets Martin will get a talented back.

Martin was a four-star prospect out of Alabama in the class of 2018, and the No. 9 running back in the class, per the 247Sports Composite.