AUBURN — Auburn football freshman Bryce Cain finished the 2024 recruiting cycle as a top-200 prospect in the nation, has been lauded for his speed throughout spring practice and tallied nearly 1,000 yards as a senior at Baker High School last season.

He's accomplished this all after playing just two years of football, and yet Tigers coach Hugh Freeze isn't sure how much he'll see the field in Year 1.

"It's a process," Freeze said Tuesday. "Very few people are just ready made and walk in and play in this league, and I want our young men to understand that and that doesn't mean they're not really, really good."

That fact doesn't just go for Cain. From defensive linemen Amaris Williams and Jamonta Waller to linebackers Joe Phillips and Demarcus Riddick, Auburn's roster is littered with freshmen vying to get on the field. It's difficult to do that with so little experience.

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But some players are so talented that they trump rules. They're not like everyone else. Some do come "ready made" to walk into the SEC and see significant snaps as a freshman.

Enter former five-star prospect Cam Coleman.

"Cam, on the other hand, is a different cat," Freeze. "He’s going to have to play and he's proved he can when he knows what to do. He's very, very good and we've got to do a great job of bringing him along and making sure he understands techniques and the system more and more.

"But he's so coachable that's going to be easy, and he just continues to make plays. He's got to go as a freshman."

Coleman finished his recruiting cycle with a composite rating of .9985 from 247Sports. That's the best mark of all of Auburn's 2024 signees, and it's the highest an offensive player who signed with the Tigers has ever earned during the modern recruiting era.

The only Auburn signee with a higher composite rating was defensive lineman Byron Cowart (.9987).

"The best thing I like about Cam Coleman is he wants to be coached," wide receivers coach Marcus Davis said March 20. "He's super coachable. He's going to try to do exactly what you're telling him to do. He loves football. It's easy to coach him because he wants that feedback. He's coming to you before you even get to him in terms of what he needs to do better.

"It's been a joy so far to coach him, just how hungry he is (and) just how much he loves football. There's not question if he's talented or not."

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Hugh Freeze describes why Auburn football's Cam Coleman 'different'