TUSCALOOSA, Ala.–Nick Saban wore a crimson blazer and a crimson and white tie. He was dressed for the occasion.
He had been in the Alabama war room for most of the day, tallying the faxed and signed national letters of intent, unless he was being interviewed by Kaylee Hartung on ESPNU. Hours removed from yet another top-ranked recruiting class, he smiled, knowing the recruiting process for these players was briefly over and massively successful yet again.
National Signing Day is more a formality at Alabama. This year was more of the same with 24 total signees making their pledge to Alabama, only one of whom was undecided before Wednesday.
“One of the very good things about this class was we didn’t have a lot of drama today in terms of these guys have been committed to us for a while,” Saban said. “They’ve all kind of had their signing day or announcements and most of them stuck to it. That’s not the way to get the most attention from the media, but that certainly speaks highly of what a commitment means and I’m really proud of the players that we got.”
In his victory press conference, Saban was pleased with the haul, mentioning getting players like top-rated quarterback Blake Barnett, the two running backs and two receivers Alabama signed Wednesday. He also identified the secondary and linebacker positions as areas of need that were addressed by this class.
In the trenches, the Crimson Tide signed five offensive, a position of need going forward with three of the five starters graduating. Only left tackle Cam Robinson and center Ryan Kelly will return to the team next season.
“That’s an area that I think we need to add to,” Saban said. “We’re going to be a little thin in the Spring with the people that we lost. It’s going to be good to get some new guys there that can maybe add some depth and compete to play for us in the near future.”
But Saban’s press conference wasn’t all celebratory.
Every Signing Day, Saban has an annual airing of grievances about the business surrounding recruiting. In particular, he’s not a fan of the “star system” often used to rate and rank high schoolers and predict the level of success they’ll have at the next level.
“Every coach is going to stand here at this podium that coaches college football and say they’re pleased with the guys that they recruited,” Saban said. “No one has a bad recruiting class, and we’re certainly pleased with our guys, but predicting how a young person is going to do academically and athletically in college by giving him some rating in high school is not very scientific.”
While he gives this stump speech every first Wednesday in February, the market for recruiting has become insatiable. ESPNU was on the air talking about recruiting for 11 hours. CBS Sports Network, the SEC Network and others matched the coverage of year-round websites, ranking and rating each player, school and class with each move. Saban and his staff are cognizant of the stars next to the player’s names — the Alabama football sports information department brags about it — but they’re not reliant upon that information.
They evaluate players that fit the best in their system, and if the player is the right fit, he’s recruited and, more often than not, signed.
“We sign players that we feel that we can develop and hope that we can develop personally, academically and athletically to be quality people, good students and play winning football here for us,” Saban said.
After the dust settled on National Signing Day, 24 new players signed on the dotted line to play at Alabama. Saban and his team had at least one top ranking from one of those recruiting polls that Saban claims to not notice. The early enrollees have already started learning the playbook and working out, and the next step is Spring football.
The recruiting process is over. The season starts now.
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