Antonio Kite, an Alabama cornerback, is moving to Auburn via the transfer site.
After two seasons in Tuscaloosa, an Alabama cornerback in the transfer portal is headed to Auburn.
Antonio Kite announced Wednesday, via Auburn Undercover, that he will be making the move to the Plains. Kite had stated plans Saturday to enter the transfer portal and officially went into the portal early this week.
Kite re-unites with Charles Kelly, who was Alabama’s safeties coach in 2022 before spending last season at Colorado. Kelly is now Auburn’s co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach.
Transfers between Alabama and Auburn have been rare, and Kite becomes the first player to move within the Iron Bowl rivalry since transfer portal rules loosened in 2021. Historically, running back Corey Grant transferred from Alabama to Auburn in 2011.
Kite was a four-star prospect in the 2022 class from Anniston, Alabama ranked No. 227 nationally by 247 Sports. He appeared in two games as a freshman and redshirted, then appeared in seven games this past season, mostly on special teams. Kite was one of Alabama’s second-team cornerbacks, opposite Trey Amos, in pregame warmups in 2023.
Since Nick Saban’s retirement last week, there have been eight Alabama players to enter the transfer portal. Kite joins Isaiah Bond (Texas) and Shawn Murphy (Florida State) as those picking new schools already.
Here’s the full list of Alabama’s 25 players to have entered the portal since it initially opened in early December:
- QB Tyler Buchner — Notre Dame (Lacrosse)
- WR Ja’Corey Brooks — Louisville
- DL Anquin Barnes — Colorado
- OL Seth McLaughlin — Ohio State
- DB Earl Little Jr. — Florida State
- QB Eli Holstein — Pittsburgh
- WR Malik Benson — Florida State
- DL Monkell Goodwine — South Carolina
- DL Isaiah Hastings — Syracuse
- DB Kristian Story — Kentucky
- OL Terrence Ferguson II – Florida State
- DB Jake Pope — Georgia
- TE Miles Kitselman — Tennessee
- RB Roydell Williams — Florida State
- WR Isaiah Bond — Texas
- WR Shazz Preston — Tulane
- LB Shawn Murphy — Florida State
- LB Kendrick Blackshire — Texas
- CB Dezz Ricks — Texas A&M
- CB Antonio Kite — Auburn
- LB Ian Jackson
- TE Amari Niblack
- CB Trey Amos
- DB Caleb Downs
- OL Kadyn Proctor
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Alabama AD Greg Byrne: ‘There was not a perfect candidate that checked every single box’
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Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne said the only perfect candidate for the Tide’s opening was Nick Saban.
- Was there a perfect candidate for Alabama’s head-coaching vacancy? Athletics director Greg Byrne believes there was only one: Nick Saban.”Unfortunately, he didn’t interview for the job this time,” Byrne told The Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday. “Tongue-in-cheek when I say that.”
Saban’s retirement last Wednesday thrust Byrne into a coaching search he had long expected to come at some point after his hire in 2017, but without an obvious solution.
- “We had been looking and being prepared for a long time,” Byrne said. “[There’s] the old saying that the AD has a list in his top desk drawer, which I never have had. But what I’ve had is something that’s a fluid list that changes in time. We had vetted, probably, a couple dozen coaches over the years that we thought, OK, could they make sense? Some made a lot more sense than others. We had criteria of what we were looking for.”The reality is, none of them fit. There was not a perfect candidate that checked every single box. Except for probably Nick Saban, that would have been it.”
After Saban informed players of his difficult decision, Byrne told the room to give him 72 hours to find the next coach. Byrne immediately drove to Birmingham’s airport and called former Alabama players on his way for advice.
“I talked to Joe Namath, and many others,” Byrne told Finebaum. “Just to get some feedback and see if they had any thoughts that they’d like to give me. They’ve got great perspective. I talked to a few key contributors of ours. I told them, I said, after this point, it’s gonna be boots to the ground for me and I’m going to be very focused on the task at hand.”
- That search led Byrne to Seattle to interview Washington’s Kalen DeBoer. When asked Saturday after DeBoer was introduced if he was the Tide’s first choice, Byrne said, “I don’t ever look at it as first choice, second choice, third choice. I really don’t. God’s honest truth. I look at it as you go through the process and you work on Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D. And that’s not a rank order. When I sit down with somebody on one day, and in my mind, I may think that, ‘Hey, this one make the most sense.’ As soon as you sit down with somebody, you have a feel very quickly.”What I’ll tell you is as soon as I sat down with Coach DeBoer and Nicole, his wife, was there and Regina, when we sat down two days ago in a hotel room in Seattle, I was not that long into it, I was like, ‘this could be our guy.’ You want to make sure you do your due diligence and all those things, and that’s what we did. But thrilled we’re standing here today with him as our new coach.”
Byrne expanded Wednesday on his approach the possible candidates on his list.
“I know one of the things you hear out there is well, you had your first choice, second choice — and I said in the press conference, Plan A, Plan B, Plan C,” he told Finebaum. “But that’s not necessarily the order that you have as far as who you want. I think it’s irresponsible, on my part, if I walk into an interview and already say, ‘Well, I think think this is my third choice but I’m gonna talk to him anyways.’ I want to be open-minded and thoughtful in the conversations that will take place.
“So in a lot of ways, you have multiple names on a list, but in some ways, it’s bullet points. It’s not even numbers, it’s not even lettered. That was the approach I took on this one. As you could imagine, we had great interest in the job. It’s a premier job.”
Five days into the job, Byrne likes what he sees.
- “I feel very confident, and even watching Coach DeBoer over the few days and working with him closely — we’ve been here, I think last night was the earliest night I got home. I think I got home at 9:30 last night,” Byrne said Wednesday. “We had been here. And his staff is starting to show up. Putting the staff together, working on the roster, meeting with kids.”
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College football recruiting: Potential landing spots for top-available 2024 prospects
- For those prospects who did not make their college decisions official during the Early Signing Period, they now enter the final stages of their recruitments with the second National Signing Day of the 2024 cycle just around the corner on Wednesday, Feb. 7. The four highest-ranked available players are at the center of attention with wide receivers Ryan Williams and Gatlin Bair, athlete Terry Bussey and edge rusher Noah Carter closing in on decisions.Some of the most high-profile recruits in the 2024 class are in a state of uncertainty amid the coaching changes at Alabama and Washington, with Williams and Carter originally committed to those schools, respectively.
With the next signing period just three weeks away, 247Sports director of scouting Andrew Ivins and national recruiting analyst Cooper Petagna convened on the 247Sports Football Recruiting Podcast to discuss potential landing spots for the top uncommitted players in the cycle.
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Get football and recruiting scoop on your favorite college team for $1 for first month.
Here is the insiders’ latest reporting on the four highest-ranked available players in the 2024 recruiting class: