Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Great Column

CECIL HURT: So what’s the secret to all these early UA commitments? - Tuscaloosa News - 7/31/07

Excerpt:

There are some things that are more appropriate in February than they are at the end of July. Snowball fights, for instance. Mailing valentines. Evaluating the recruiting classes of college football programs.

It’s still too early to give any sort of final analysis of Nick Saban’s first full class of recruits as Alabama’s head coach. (While he put his stamp on last February’s class, it wasn’t fully a Saban production.)

All the time-honored cliches about early commitments apply here. No, you don’t ever know how they are going to turn out, particularly now, when the prospects haven’t even played their final year of high school ball yet. No, verbal commitments aren’t binding. All that is true.

But this isn’t an attempt to take the University of Alabama’s sudden flurry of early commitments, amounting now to 13 or roughly half the Crimson Tide’s eventual class, and predict their ultimate impact on the football field.

This is an attempt to measure psychological impact, moreso than physical. Exactly why is Alabama -- still a team in transition -- having so much success, and not just among players who have close ties to the Crimson Tide program? Players like Tuscaloosa County’s John Michael Boswell, who lives just across from the river from the UA campus, or Tyler Love of Mountain Brook, who has numerous family ties to Alabama, are important recruits and their verbal pledges can in no way be diminished in importance.

2 comments:

Sharp said...

Heady news indeed. It's nice poaching Auburn territory again.

Just one thing, though. If Saban leaves inside of five or six years (a distinct possibility if someone else flashes enough coin, given his history), he will think Miami absolutely loves him by comparison. Franchione will be considered an amatuer at treachery.

Mike Wilhelm said...

Agreed, but maybe he won't leave the pantry bare and the team on probation...