Alabama Football: How Does SEC Expansion Affect Alabama Recruiting

In soon enough time, the SEC will eventually hold a press conference to announce the addition of Texas A&M and Missouri into the conference. These are two huge coups and will only strengthen the league, and it looks like there's a chance Auburn moves into the SEC East division.

Missouri's football program will challenge the SEC incumbents thanks to their spread offense and ability to attack in the passing game. With the SEC being a physical league, this will really force teams to adjust to their defenders playing in space.

However, Texas A&M's impact may even be grander thanks to the prime mantra of real estate: location, location, location. Texas folks, the Lone Star State.

The land formerly known as The Republic of Texas is a football recruiting hotbed and preaches high school football almost as much as religious values. With the SEC having a school in the state, this will definitely and significantly increase the exposure the conference has to Texan recruits, parents, high schools and fans.

With Alabama being the current lead dog in the best league in college football, how does all of this affect their recruiting efforts?

In my opinion, it helps.

Alabama is one of the premier programs in the sport, and they are also one of the premier juggernauts on the recruiting trail. Nick Saban has an extremely thorough approach to recruiting that really focuses on extensive evaluation of the prospect's skill set, how they fit into their schemes and character background checks.

The Crimson Tide do an amazing job of battling arch rival Auburn for Yellowhammer State recruits, winning a good-sized portion of the Iron Bowl recruiting standoffs then they branch out.

And boy do I mean branch out.

'Bama will then venture off throughout the South, with Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas being the main hotbeds. Gobbling up more prospects, they'll also will head down to South Florida to check out the scene.

The Tide will also reach up to the Midwest and Northeast for elite players in those regions, and in recent years, they have stretched West to kick tires on California, Washington and other players deemed elite from Western states.

Then, this past cycle, Alabama went international. Like to Australia, international. Well, not physically, but 5-star DT Jesse Williams is from Down Under.

With the expansion of the conference, this only helps Alabama. In the Show Me State, the Tide are already one of the rumored prime schools for WR Dorial Green-Beckham, who happens to be the No.1 prospect in America.

Their reach into the state would only increase should Missouri indeed join the SEC. 

Right now, I count three players on the Crimson Tide roster that hail from Texas. It's hard to recruit inside the state because Mack Brown gets first dibs on the elite talent. But if you put an SEC Flag on Texas A&M, along with the marketing of then conference and Alabama having a reason to come to College Station every other year, that would make the Tide more exposed and accessible to Texas prep prospects.

Which, given Alabama's track record when being exposed and accessible to recruits, would see the Tide make a breakthrough into Texas recruiting and start to land more Texas talent.

SEC Expansion is very good for Alabama recruiting.