Alabama Football: Tide Lands Best Recruiting Class in Years

When the University of Alabama hired Nick Saban to be its next head coach on January 3, 2007, Saban had about a month to pick up the pieces of what was becoming Mike Shula’s fourth class. 

In a month, Saban took the class all the way to No. 10 in the Rivals.com rankings. 

For his 2008 class, however, Saban has had an entire year and has used every single minute of it to his advantage, landing one of the top three classes in the country.

Saban has not only reclaimed the state after it almost slipped to Auburn University and the rest of the SEC, but he has also reached out to other states and has begun to take them over as well. 

Before Saban, top recruits such as JaMarcus Russell and Pat White were leaving the state for other schools.  Now, Saban is keeping that home grown talent inside the Alabama state lines. 

Alabama has landed all of the top-five recruits from the state, including all-everything WR Julio Jones, and 14 of the top 20 from the state of Alabama overall.  In a year in which the state of Alabama boasted some of its best talent ever, the Tide has kept it under wraps. 

Additional big names from inside the state are OL Tyler Love and athlete Burton Scott, both of whom are rated with five-stars along with Jones.

The upside of Scott and Love is that their commitments came very early in the process and they continued to aid the Tide to get this great class.  Both came down to visit unofficially multiple times to help with recruiting and Scott took visits with other prospects who were considering Alabama in hopes of swaying their opinion. 

Not only was Saban dominant in-state, but the second-year Tide coach also branched out nationwide and pulled in 14 out-of-staters to be a part of this class that includes over 30 players. 

Alabama managed to pull three of the top five guys out of Tennessee, gained huge strides in getting two players out of Florida, neither of whom were expected to leave the state, and then the best cornerback out of Mississippi.

The prized players from out-of-state are quarterback Star Jackson from Florida, Barrett Jones from Tennessee, and Alonzo Lawrence from Mississippi.

Jackson is no doubt the Tide’s quarterback of the future, and fans are ready for him to hit the field as early the Tide’s opener against Clemson.  He is listed as a pro-style quarterback according to rivals, but Jackson also has the ability to run the ball effectively.

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