It's Funny How Quickly "Creepy" Can Turn Into "Exciting" When Success is Involved

But I am interested in potentially copying what you’ve done on my own site.

Recruiting can be a fascinating topic, but it is definitely posible to get TOO caught up in it. It’s one of those things where, if you want to believe it, you can argue that your team “wins” every year. After all, you bring in 25 players every year, as do the other teams, and the arguments over whose 25 are better can be really subjective.

It’s particularly amusing to hear/read people who really know nothing about recruiting argue about how great their team’s recruiting went or is going. It’s sort of like discussing the MLB draft. You can make some projections, but the players who commit now probably aren’t going to be contributors until the 2010 season at the earliest, and most won’t be contributors until the 2011 or 2012 season. in that time, lots of different things can happen.

I love recruiting, but you have to constantly struggle to keep it in perspective.

that you say you never cared much about recruiting because for a long time, there was an attitude at Bama that we were not a team of four and five-star superstars, but guys who loved the Crimson Tide and wanted to win for love of team. There was a battle when I was in school between the old mindset (take guys who play for tradition, love of Bama over the superstar types) and the new mindset (get a bunch of superstars and offer them the NFL). I certainly think you need a balance, but I think we do need, and have needed, to be a team that attracts top-ranked talent. I know some of the old-timers hate this, but the game has changed in ways that force us to keep up with the times.

Mal Moore realized it and went after Saban because he knew Saban was the best recruiter he had ever seen. We tried to thrive on pride and system and we failed. Now it’s time we load up with talent. Of course it’s a major plus if they love the Crimson Tide in addition to being talented. But the era of, “We’re Alabama, let the superstars go to Miami and Notre Dame…we’ll beat them with pride” is over.

It is interesting how fans, myself included, vacillate on their interest and opinon of recruiting. It seems like all we read and heard from rival fan bases (uhm…Auburn and Tennessee) this year was how rankings did not matter this year. They always seemed to matter in years when their respective teams did well. Of course, as you said this was the same thing many of us Alabama fans said before Saban too.

recruiting is sketchy at best. I like to see our team pull in GOOD recruits. I kinda have an old and new school mind set. You know the days of the little scrapper are done to a degree, but you love too see that 5’9” guy come in an rip everyone up for yardage( Sherman Williams, Prothro, etc). Then, again you know you need the Shawn Alexanders, Derrick Thomas’s of the world as well. I think as long as we have guys that want to win and work at winning we should be ok, but you still need VERY talented players as well to get over the hump from being just and ok squad. That’s what makes it so interesting, you never know until they PERFORM!! RTR!!

about some of Bryant and Stallings’ best teams is that they had a great combination of stud and scrapper. We had guys like Kevin Turner, Antonio Langham, and John Copeland racking up accolades alongside guys like Stacey Harrison, Mickey Conn, and Michael Ausmus who played hard on scout team and blocked kicks and made tackles on special teams on Saturdays.

What was lost during most of the 2000’s was the stud athlete. We really didn’t have a lot of big, fast, mean guys. I definitely think there is something about having a big, built team. I’ll never forget when I started my postgraduate work at USC. I walked over to Howard Jones field one day to watch the Trojans work out and play a little 7-on-7. This was around 2003/2004, and God, they were the fastest team I had ever seen. They had so many big (not fat, either) dudes. They practiced hard as hell even though there weren’t any coaches out there and they flew around. I mean, they were faster than any team I had ever seen, and during my time at Alabama, I saw some fast teams up close. I also remember (and still notice) how big Pete Carroll’s teams are. They walk onto the field with a whole bunch of 6’4, 6’5 guys who are 250 pounds of muscle. You put good coaching, good attitude, and intensity behind that and boy, you got something special.

Not to hate on the undersized scrappers (because that’s exactly what I was when I played) but Alabama has produced some of the biggest, baddest football players in history and we shouldn’t forget that. For a long time, John Hannah was considered the greatest guard to ever play and Dwight Stephenson was considered the greatest center. Ozzie Newsome was considered the greatest tight end. Joe Namath is considered one of the greatest quarterbacks. All I’m saying is we’ve had the studs, too, so there’s nothing wrong with being a team that attracts guys who want to play in the NFL. If you get the right players, they’ll play hard for the Crimson Tide AND their own personal glory.

...about Coach Saban and our recruits is he got the best of the best from the state of Alabama who grew up Tide fans, yet was able to attract talent outside the state with absolutely no ties to Bama football. Mark Ingram said some great things about why he wanted to come to Alabama when he committed and I am very impressed with his attitude. He and Star Jackson came to A-Day – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwv5Ac7O2cU. You gotta love Star saying he wanted to make it hard for the coaches to redshirt him. That kind of competitive spirit can only make the current players better.

I was hoing that someone would do this because it is interesting to keep up with. I wouldn’t change a thing, sometimes more is less and what you have is enough. If someone needs more than go to scout or rivals.com. Keep up the good work!