Alabama Football Recruiting: Landon Collins' Mom Accuses Saban of Stereotyping

Alabama head coach Nick Saban has made a career out of rubbing people the wrong way.

It's a price that Saban has seemingly been more than willing to pay to scale the top of the college football world, and if his latest placation on the recruiting trail is any indication, then the benefits have far outweighed the costs.

In a story for ESPN The Magazine on Crimson Tide commit Landon Collins, Christopher Schultz spoke with April Justin, Collins' mother, who claimed that Saban "stereotyped" her during an in-home visit this past fall:

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Landon included his mom when it came time to finalize his decision. That's how, with Collins leaning toward Alabama this fall, Saban came to visit Justin. She says the coach offended her during his stay by promising that her son would be a high NFL draft pick and receive a multimillion-dollar contract. "I think he stereotyped me," Justin says. In her mind, Saban had told her what he thought she wanted to hear, when her real concerns were about academics and how a program would take care of her son. 

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As if a multimillion-dollar pitch were a bad way to steer a recruit to campus. With the likes of Trent Richardson, Courtney Upshaw, Dre Kirkpatrick, Dont'a Hightower and Mark Barron all penciled in as first-round picks in the 2012 NFL Draft, it's not exactly a false pitch, either.

Granted, academics are and should be a legitimate concern for any parent whose child is headed to Tuscaloosa. Alabama had the SEC's fourth-highest Graduation Success Rate of any SEC school (69 percent) according to the most recent NCAA statistics. That's a full eight percent behind No. 2 LSU, where Justin had hoped her son, who was born and raised on the Bayou, would ultimately end up.

Still, if you read on into the article, Justin's distress seems to have less to do with anything Saban said and more to do with her own struggles in coming to grips with her son's decision to leave home for the first time:

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Justin has always valued a tight-knit family. She and her children go every winter to Florida and spend a few days at theme parks like Universal Studios...This year was the last opportunity for such a trip, before her son headed off to college. But with all the hoopla surrounding Landon, Justin knew the trip wouldn't happen.

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That's not to say that Saban is necessarily a saint or that he might not resort to unseemly tactics on the recruiting.

Rather, let's not blow this supposed story of Saban's intransigence out of proportion. If anything, Collins' mom was more put off by Saban's attempt to pry away her son—the No. 2-rated safety in the country, according to Scout.com—rather than how he went about it.

Surely, Justin won't harbor so much resentment once she sees Landon rolling with the Tide on the way to a bright and lucrative future in the NFL.

As for Les Miles over at LSU...well, he's got bigger fish to fry when it comes to his professional rivalry with Saban.

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