Aggie_Jeff said:

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I think it's more about the kid wanting to go to Bama because they are winning national championships nearly every year. Some kids think that's swell.

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It is insane fact, but it is still a fact.

If you go to Alabama under Nick Saban for 3 college years, you'll almost certainly play on at least 1 national championship team. If you go to Alabama under Nick Saban for 4 college years, you'll probably play on at least 2 national championship teams.

No other program in the country can offer that kind of message to a recruit, presenting it as matter of fact outcome.

I get the idea of "he's a good coach, but a great recruiter".

But pulling your starting QB at halftime of the national championship and replacing him with a fish to lead the comeback, that solidified "best coach of all time" for me. Maybe he doesn't have super creative scheming. But he's still a great coach. A fantastic coach in fact. And an even better recruiter.

Claiming what Alabama is "doing" or what TU "did/does," isn't any different than the aims of any smart P5 program who can recruit at the top is baffling. Saban would be stupid not to attempt to retain as many players as he can he doesn't want to have his team line up against. Its also to the benefit for a majority of these young athletes to select schools which will give them opportunities (scholastic, social, economic, & athletic). No one on this board can predict perfectly who will see play and when it will happen. We will get the players who want to play for the Ags and trust in Jimbo and the staff to coach them in their transitions into leaders.

gocobra said:

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the same old stuff the sips use to pull?

Load up on the players in the positions others really need so other teams can be exposed for lack of talent / depth in a key position or two.

I mean how may top DBs does Bama really need? All of them?? Really? When I was in college I'd liked to have had a few dozen girlfriends on any given day..... but what would I have done with all of them? (yay yay you are a stud and would have managed it. I call BS brother)

tu use to do whatever it took to keep us from landing key recruits to keep us from being more competitive.

OK OK.. the kids get to choose to go wherever they want. I get that. and there are now scholly limits these days.

but I just don't buy that bama really believes they need EVER 5* DB in the gallaxy to the point they are out after key commits of their competition. There has to be a limit on addressing your actual needs in key areas.

So that's on my mind today -- now flame away.

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So a school is recruiting good players to try and make sure those good players don't go to other schools and play against them? GASP!

HoustonAg2106 said:

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Aggiebrewer said:

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he is a good coach. no doubt.

but what I mean by not a great coach is he doesn't need to be. his recruiting is so good & now it just feeds itself with more & more 5 stars. when you start 22 four & five star players you don't have to be a great coach. you have to not get in the way.
mistakes made by his players are fewer, and can be covered by the other 10 players on the field.

his offense & defense are vanilla. no need for great football minds making elaborate schemes when you can just win by going hat on hat.

he beats you with depth
he beats you with speed
he beats you with heart
he beats you with brute force

all of these of the 5 star variety

good coach
GREAT recruiter

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He also won a national championship with LSU and while that was a very good team, it was not a team built with year after year of number one recruiting classes, same with his 2009 Alabama team...he has proven to be a great coach AND a great recruiter

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Exactly.

Let's look at his career:
Toledo - coming off of back-to-back 6-5 seasons, Saban is hired and immediately goes 9-2.

Michigan State - 16-18 in 3 seasons prior to coming. 34-24-1 while there, finishing with a 9-2 season.

LSU - 7-15 in 2 seasons prior to coming. 48-16, including the 2003 national title, under Saban.

Alabama - 26-23 under previous head coach. NCAA investigations left from previous coach. 140-20 and 5 national titles under Saban.

Yeah, the guy is not only a great coach. He's the greatest college coach ever.

that is to be expected.

we have to counter it.

I've never heard a player boast of the great education he got at Alabama if all the recruits family want is an nfl audition Then whatever

playoverruled said:

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I've never heard a player boast of the great education he got at Alabama if all the recruits family want is an nfl audition Then whatever

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Alabama isn't Georgia, Florida or A&M, but it's not a bad school. Last I saw, it's just outside the top 100 nationally.

Pelayo said:

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Mack B did it to us as much as he could early on.

Butt no alabbama is not purposefully targeting al the DB's in the univverse like tu did in the past. Where not an in state rivvall

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Is this schtick, or just really bad typing?

Gigemags382 said:

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I get the idea of "he's a good coach, but a great recruiter".

But pulling your starting QB at halftime of the national championship and replacing him with a fish to lead the comeback, that solidified "best coach of all time" for me. Maybe he doesn't have super creative scheming. But he's still a great coach. A fantastic coach in fact. And an even better recruiter.

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Replacing one 5* with another 5*? That's not a stroke of genius

p1 Claire said:

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Pelayo said:

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Mack B did it to us as much as he could early on.

Butt no alabbama is not purposefully targeting al the DB's in the univverse like tu did in the past. Where not an in state rivvall

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Is this schtick, or just really bad typing?

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obviously schtick in response to bad spelling and grammar elsewhere.

PacifistAg said:

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HoustonAg2106 said:

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Aggiebrewer said:

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he is a good coach. no doubt.

but what I mean by not a great coach is he doesn't need to be. his recruiting is so good & now it just feeds itself with more & more 5 stars. when you start 22 four & five star players you don't have to be a great coach. you have to not get in the way.
mistakes made by his players are fewer, and can be covered by the other 10 players on the field.

his offense & defense are vanilla. no need for great football minds making elaborate schemes when you can just win by going hat on hat.

he beats you with depth
he beats you with speed
he beats you with heart
he beats you with brute force

all of these of the 5 star variety

good coach
GREAT recruiter

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He also won a national championship with LSU and while that was a very good team, it was not a team built with year after year of number one recruiting classes, same with his 2009 Alabama team...he has proven to be a great coach AND a great recruiter

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Exactly.

Let's look at his career:
Toledo - coming off of back-to-back 6-5 seasons, Saban is hired and immediately goes 9-2.

Michigan State - 16-18 in 3 seasons prior to coming. 34-24-1 while there, finishing with a 9-2 season.

LSU - 7-15 in 2 seasons prior to coming. 48-16, including the 2003 national title, under Saban.

Alabama - 26-23 under previous head coach. NCAA investigations left from previous coach. 140-20 and 5 national titles under Saban.

Yeah, the guy is not only a great coach. He's the greatest college coach ever.

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Even more impressive than I thought....when it's all said and done he's going to have nearly 10 national championships...

If you have ever watched videos of his practices or when he talks to his team, he is doing anything but "staying out of the way"...he demands excellence at all times from his players and is constantly in his players and even his coaches business about it.

MaroonMachine said:

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The main difference is tu, and Darrell Royal did it before scholarship limits. They were a bunch of cheating dogs as well.

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The SWC put in scholarship limits of 115, due to Bear Bryant's scandal, in '57 . DKR became the sip HC in either '56 or '57. You've been sold a myth.

It was later reduced to 105 and then the NCAA reduced to 95 in the 70s and 85 in the early 90s.

So unless Bama has more than 85 scholarship players I don't see how they can be loading up to keep them from other teams.

longeryak said:

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MaroonMachine said:

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The main difference is tu, and Darrell Royal did it before scholarship limits. They were a bunch of cheating dogs as well.

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The SWC put in scholarship limits of 115, due to Bear Bryant's scandal, in '57 . DKR became the sip HC in either '56 or '57. You've been sold a myth.

It was later reduced to 105 and then the NCAA reduced to 95 in the 70s and 85 in the early 90s.

So unless Bama has more than 85 scholarship players I don't see how they can be loading up to keep them from other teams.

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It is definitely a win-win situation when you can steal a recruit from another division team. I'm sure Bama's staff looks at division rivals' offer lists and cherry picks gems from them. Bama recruits nationally and since we came into the SEC, they have cherry picked talent in the state.(e.g. Tony Brown). It never crosses some of these kid's minds that they that they may sit on the pine a few years or never play. Da'Shawn Hand was the #1 overall recruit and he didn't start there until his junior or senior year. If he wanted to, he would have started day one at A&M.Tony Brown would have started day one at A&M, chose Bama and had trouble staying on the field and then went undrafted so he did at least make it to the league, but he would of with A&M also and probably would not have had to worry as much about keeping his starting job.

Bear and Mack Brown used to do this stuff. It was also worse in Bear's time because schools were not limited to 85 players so many of those guys never played or never started.

As far as the Saban being a great coach debate, I agree there are probably others that are better X's and O's guys (not saying he isn't great on the defensive side), but part of being a great coach goes beyond X's and O's. He is the best organizer and best CEO type of coach in CFB history. He is the one that started the trend of hiring an army of ex-Coaches as analysts to make his job easier by scouting other teams. I might pick Bear in a one on one hypothetical game against him because Bear could do more with less ("Bryant can take his'n and beat your'n, and then he can turn around and take your'n and beat his'n." - Bum Phillips), but over a career I probably would pick Saban.

Aggiebrewer said:

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he is a good coach. no doubt.

but what I mean by not a great coach is he doesn't need to be. his recruiting is so good & now it just feeds itself with more & more 5 stars. when you start 22 four & five star players you don't have to be a great coach. you have to not get in the way.
mistakes made by his players are fewer, and can be covered by the other 10 players on the field.

his offense & defense are vanilla. no need for great football minds making elaborate schemes when you can just win by going hat on hat.

he beats you with depth
he beats you with speed
he beats you with heart
he beats you with brute force

all of these of the 5 star variety

good coach
GREAT recruiter

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You can have the top 25 rated guys in the country every year, year in, year out, and still **** it up with bad/mediocre coaching. Hell, look at the talent Texas has been putting together massively underwhelming seasons with over the last decade.

This isn't NFL talent that knows what they're doing right off the bat- these are talented kids that still need to be taught the ins/outs of the game, how to manage their time, how to work as a team, and on and on. Saban is a good/great coach on the field, but he's the best that ever was off the field, too. He's built a machine not only in recruiting, but in all the other areas that are less glamorous and highly publicized. There are always issues, but relatively speaking they have fewer off the field issues than many other programs.