The current day and age of college football has turned into a much more over the table, straightforward strategy in terms of how talent is acquired and players are recruited.
While the days of McDonald’s bags full of cash and secret car dealership agreements may be gone in favor of the NIL era, there are some absolutely classic stories left over.
Former Alabama Crimson Tide legendary quarterback AJ McCarron shared one this week on his new podcast with play-by-play broadcaster Chris Stewart and as well as his former teammate in superstar running back Trent Richardson:
McCarron, who is from Mobile, recounted the time Lane Kiffin — then the head coach at Tennessee — brought his entire staff down to the Gulf Coast to sneak around Nick Saban and his staff and try to flip the gunslinger to Knoxville.
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Saban had an inkling that Kiffin and his staff were poking around, so he sent Jeremy Pruitt a few hours South to stake out McCarron’s house and make sure Kiffin did not arrive.
A loyal soldier, Pruitt did as he was asked, but there was one problem.
He was at the wrong house.
“One morning, I’m knocked out, dad’s at the fire station, I’m sleeping,” McCarron recalled. “All of a sudden, I got a bang on my window, bedroom window. ‘Bam Bam Bam’, I woke up and was like, who the hell is banging on my window? I open up the blinds, and it’s Lane (Kiffin) and Lance (Thompson) who are leaning down near my window (waving). I look behind them, and it’s the whole offensive coaching staff for Tennessee, outside my window. All you hear is Lance saying ‘Let me in! Let us in!’”
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Kiffin and his entire staff got around Pruitt because he was a few doors down.
Already knowing he was going to Alabama, McCarron got a call from Saban shortly after the Tennessee house visit, and when Saban heard Pruitt was not there, all hell broke loose.
“Coach Saban calls me, ‘What are you doing, boy?’” McCarron said. “Oh, just getting my day going, but I just had a full-on interview, meeting with the whole Tennessee staff. He said, ‘What do you mean?’. Well, the whole staff was down here in my living room, and were here for about 30-45 minutes….He said, ‘I told Pruitt’s ass to get down there and watch your house, let me call him.’”
Saban proceeded to chew Pruitt out, who went and knocked on the door of the house he was watching, only to have an elderly woman answer to tell him the McCarrons lived six homes down.
Of course, it all worked out in the end.
But these are the kind of classic recruiting tales we will be missing from this era, years down the line.
Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP and hear him every weekday morning from 6 to 9 a.m. on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5, available free online.