So much for the announcement after the Class AA state championship game next week. Per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Carver-Columbus running back Isaiah Crowell, generally considered the top overall prospect in Georgia this year, has decided to postpone his college decision until the end of the recruiting period, coach Dell McGee said Thursday.
"Isaiah and his family want to make the best decision for his future and they feel that taking his five official visits will give them the best opportunity to evaluate and assess what they are looking for in a school," McGee told the AJC. "They want to give each school a fair opportunity."
With the obvious caveat that we're at the whim of a seventeen year old kid, I imagine this is probably good news for 'Bama. True or not, there was rampant speculation that Crowell was going to commit to Georgia after taking a visit to Athens this upcoming Sunday, so the fact that Crowell has now decided to wait and take all five of his official visits is probably a good sign for us. Given his childhood allegiance to the Dawgs, I tend to think that he probably ends up at UGA, but stringing this out for us likely helps, especially considering that Mark Ingram will undoubtedly enter the NFL Draft three weeks before National Signing Day.
One way or the other, Nick Saban has made it clear that we are taking another tailback in this class. Obviously we still have Dee Hart on the radar screen, and most now think he'll end up at UA (in fact, his high school teammate Ha'Sean Clinton-Dix even said on Twitter that he was now a silent commitment to Alabama), but given the attrition we've had at tailback in recent months -- Jeramie Griffin going on medical scholarship, Mark Ingram being NFL bound, etc. -- I imagine we'll gladly take two backs if we can make it happen. We have three tailbacks on the radar screen with Isiah Crowell, Dee Hart, and Baton Rouge native and LSU commitment Jeremy Hill (who visited Tuscaloosa this past weekend). I'm sure we'll get at least one of those three, and I imagine we'd gladly welcome a second.