Auburn’s 2026 running back room is crowded, and Tae Meadows is stepping into it with a story that fits the Tigers’ transfer-portal push.
Alex Golesh went looking for talent at running back, and Auburn found a productive one in Meadows, Troy’s leading rusher in 2025. For Meadows, though, this isn’t just another move on a depth chart. It’s the next stop in a chase that started years ago in Roanoke, Alabama, and has finally brought him to the school he grew up cheering for.
Meadows first grabbed statewide attention back in 2020, when he was an 11th-grader at Handley and ripped through Gordo High School for 264 yards and four touchdowns in the AHSAA Class 4A state championship game. That performance looked like the arrival of an elite back, but the path after high school still had to be earned the hard way.
He walked on at Troy and spent three years climbing his way to the top of the Trojans’ depth chart. Once he got there, he made the most of it. In 2025, Meadows ran for 695 yards and six touchdowns as a junior, including 186 yards in Troy’s season-opener and another strong outing with more than 90 yards in Troy’s 28-18 win over Southern Miss in November.
Now a senior, Meadows is trying to make good on the dream he talked about in a recent interview with AuburnTigers.com.
“My dream school was Auburn growing up,” Meadows said in a recent interview with AuburnTigers.com. “My family was originally Alabama fans, shoot dang near my whole city.
But now I see my family all buy Auburn jerseys and everything. They are so happy to see me doing something that I grew up wanting to do and living out my dream at Auburn.”
The competition in Auburn’s backfield is real. Meadows is joining a group that includes returning star Jeremiah Cobb, 1,000-yard rusher Bryson Washington, fellow AHSAA standout Alvin Henderson, and Omar Mabson, who has climbed from the bottom to become a quality player in an SEC offense. Meadows has already shown he can produce at this level, and Auburn is betting that, if the opportunity comes, he can do it again.
Tae Meadows’ Auburn player profile also includes his career stats from Troy: 16 games, 10 starts, 163 carries, 741 yards, 4.5 yards per carry, and seven touchdowns. His seasons broke down like this: one game in 2023 with one carry for five yards and a touchdown, three games in 2024 with three carries for 41 yards, and a breakout 2025 campaign with 159 carries for 695 yards and six scores.
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