Texas K Bert Auburn announces intent to enter the NCAA transfer portal
The three-year starter struggled during the 2024 season and was benched for the Cotton Bowl
Texas Longhorns senior kicker Bert Auburn announced his intentions to enter the NCAA transfer portal on Thursday evening after an up-and-down career on the Forty Acres that included clutch kicks in the 2022 and 2023 seasons before struggles in 2024 that culminated with his benching for the Cotton Bowl after missing two go-ahead field goals in the final 1:37 of regulation against the Arizona State Sun Devils.
Auburn has one year of eligibility remaining.
At Peach Bowl Media Day in December at the College Football Hall of Fame ahead of the matchup between the Longhorns and Sun Devils, special team’s coordinator Jeff Banks told Burnt Orange Nation Auburn would be in burnt orange and white once again in 2025.
Auburn also told Horns247 that he plans on returning, a decision foreshadowed when the Flower Mound product opted against walking on Senior Day against Kentucky last month.
A 60, 185-pounder, Auburn walked on at Texas in 2021 and made an appearance in the win over Rice, then took over for Cameron Dicker the following season after competing for the starting place kicker job against Stone, converting on 21-of-26 field-goal attempts and scoring 118 points, the second-most in a single season for a Longhorns kicker.
Auburn started to demonstrate his ability in the clutch during the last-second Week 2 loss to Alabama in Austin in 2022, hitting on 4-of-5 field-goal attempts, including a 49-yarder with 1:29 remaining to take the lead. In the Big 12 opener against Texas Tech in Lubbock, Auburn came through again in a big moment, nailing a 44-yarder as time expired to send the game into overtime.
The 2023 season got off to an inconsistent start for Auburn working with graduate transfer punter Ryan Sanborn as his holder, resulting in five misses through the first five games, matching Auburn’s 2022 total, including two miscues against Kansas. Sarkisian stuck with Auburn, putting an emphasis on improving the entire field-goal operation.
Auburn responded to the vote of confidence from his head coach, setting a program and conference record with 19 consecutive made field goals and the school’s single-season record with 29 made field goals while scoring 143 points, the most ever for a Texas kicker and the third-most for any Longhorns player. Conference coaches and the Associated Press selected Auburn as the first-team All-Big 12 kicker.
In the overtime win over Kansas State, Auburn made all four attempts, including a 49-yarder, hit three in the road win against TCU, including another 49-yarder, connected on three field goals in Ames as Texas beat Iowa State, and then made a career-long 54-yard in the regular-season finale against Texas Tech.
At the start of summer conditioning prior to the 2024 season, Auburn was placed on scholarship by the Texas staff.
The entire 2024 campaign has looked more like the shaky start to 2023 for Auburn than his record-setting finish — his overall accuracy has dropped to 68.2 percent from 82.9 percent last season, he’s missed both of his attempt over 50 yards, and he’s 6-of-11 on field-goal attempts between 40 and 49 yards.
As HornSports pointed out on Twitter, the issues for Auburn have mostly come from the right hash, as he’s perfect on five kicks from the left hash, 5-of-7 from the middle, including a miss from 51 yards, and 5-of-10 from the right hash.
While Banks indicated that Auburn is excited about finishing the season strong, the SEC Championship game loss to Georgia was a microcosm of the 2024 campaign with Auburn connecting on four field goals (41 yards, 42 yards, 37 yards, and 32 yards) and missing two field goals (42 yards and 51 yards). The Longhorns lost in overtime.
Now the immediate question for Auburn is whether he can make a clutch kick from 40-plus yards if Texas needs him to against Arizona State. The holding of freshman punter Michael Kern hasn’t been an issue, according to Banks, and Auburn has made some high-pressure field goals in his career — remember those late kicks against Alabama and Texas Tech back in his first season as a starter in 2022?
“I think he has the experience to make those kicks. I think when you get past 50, you’re looking at a tougher kick… I think it’s just been a little bit hit or miss, a little bit unlucky. He’s missed some field goals to the right, but not by very much — by four or five feet,” Banks told BON.
“It’s a good kick as far as contact, so that’s probably been the more frustrating thing. When you miss field goals and you hit the ball poorly, for me it’s like, that’s a shitty kick. You know what I mean? He hasn’t had a lot of those, it’s just missing it slightly to the right or to the left, so hopefully he can get a rhythm these next few games.”
Instead, the high-profile misses by Auburn resulted in his benching for the Cotton Bowl against Ohio State, during which kickoff specialist Will Stone kicked two extra points, the first of his career.
That set up an important competition this spring between Auburn and Stone after Auburn finished the 2024 season 16-of-25 on field goals (64.0 percent), including 6-of-15 on kicks from 40 or more yards (40 percent). The 64-percent accuracy by Auburn ranked 12th out of 13 qualified kickers in the SEC.
“Trying to find that right rhythm of consistency when you have a competition going on, the battery is as important, as is the protection, as even just the kick, and so trying to work on that, and that’ll be a big emphasis of ours as we continue to move forward,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said on Monday.
A key moment in the competition came on Thursday when the Longhorns held their second spring scrimmage with Auburn’s decision indicating that Stone is currently ahead in that competition.
Now Auburn is in the portal and Sarkisian and Banks may well decide to add a more proven kicker to the competition with Texas State transfer Mason Shipley an obvious target as a Liberty Hill product who made all 15 of his field-goal attempts in 2023 when he was a Lou Groza Award semifinalist
