AUBURN, Ala. -- There are recruiting weekends, and then there’s the recruiting weekend Auburn hosted in January, three weeks before signing day.

The Tigers closed strong. They landed 10 commitments in the final month and finished No. 7 in the ESPN class rankings. But it didn’t come as a surprise to coach Gus Malzahn. Not after the changes he made to his coaching staff and certainly not after that weekend in January when a ridiculous amount of talent made its way to the Plains.

“What was it, seven five-star guys? I’ve never heard of that, anywhere,” Malzahn said. “And that was a short period of time with our new staff coming in, new defensive guys. So we feel like in the future, with this staff, we have a chance to do something special.”

So just how big was that weekend?

As Malzahn said, there were seven five-stars on campus. But that was only the beginning. There were a total of 14 players ranked in the ESPN 300, at least one player ranked in the ESPN Junior 300 and four other 2015 recruits who wound up signing with the Tigers, including four-star athlete Tim Irvin who flipped from Texas to Auburn before he left town.

The headliner was Byron Cowart, the nation’s No. 1 player.

“It was great,” Cowart said. “We just had fun. It felt like family. This was the first time I’ve gone on a visit and just relaxed. I asked my tough questions and all that stuff, but I felt at home.”

It’s no wonder Cowart felt at home. Nearly half of the visitors were from his home state of Florida, including fellow five-stars Martez Ivey, CeCe Jefferson and Torrance Gibson. He spent the majority of his time with Jefferson, Jeffrey Holland and Ryan Davis. All but Jefferson, who inked with Florida, ended up signing with the Tigers.

Still, even Jefferson knew how special that weekend was.

“I’ve never been on campus with as much talent as I was here with this weekend,” he said at the time.

Five-star athlete Kerryon Johnson, one of eight committed players to visit that weekend, said the only time he’s seen that much talent in one specific place was at the Under Armour All-America Game. It probably felt like some sort of reunion for the eight visitors who played in the Under Armour game. Five others played together in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

So how do you make time for everybody on a weekend like that? The coaches want to focus on the top guys -- players like Cowart, Ivey and Jefferson -- but they can’t neglect other visitors who might end up signing and playing a key role down the road.

It had to be stressful, right? Wrong.

“Great players like hanging with great players,” Malzahn said. “It was very relaxed. There wasn’t stress like the outside world would think with that many great players. Really, it was very comfortable. And we’re going to continue to do that.”

By that, he means host these visitor weekends with talent from all over the country. The more recruits on campus, the merrier. It’s nothing new in the world of recruiting and nothing new for Auburn, which hosts its annual Big Cat Weekend every May. It’s grown in size every year, and this year’s event might be the biggest yet with the new coaches on board.

But it’s hard to imagine that anything will ever top the weekend that Auburn hosted last month. Not at Auburn or at any school.

Looking back, not everybody from that weekend signed with the Tigers. In fact, they missed out on five of the seven five-stars who were on campus. But some of the recruits did sign, and more importantly, it set a precedent for what’s to come.

“This is what [the future] could be,” Johnson said after his visit. “Obviously, we’re probably not going to get every single person that was here, but this just shows how many good players are interested and how many good players see what’s going on here.”