Alabama’s dominance on the field may not have come to an end last season, but the program’s 2018 recruiting efforts slipped a hair from previous efforts. After finishing with the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class for seven consecutive seasons, the Crimson Tide didn’t even finish with the highest-ranked SEC recruiting class last cycle.

Slipping to No. 7 is no real shame, after all, Alabama had limited scholarships to hand out this recruiting cycle. While that’s accurate, Nick Saban clearly believes the massive amount of staff turnover he experienced following the program’s latest national championship affected its recruiting efforts.

During an interview with Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski on ESPNU Radio on SiriusXM, Saban admitted as much.

Here’s what Saban had to say when Coach K asked him how he adjusts to annually losing members of his coaching staff.

“Well it’s challenging, no doubt. But the way I try to do it is look, the guys that got the opportunities did a fantastic job for me so I’m always pleased that they got the opportunity that they got,” Saban answered. “And I kind of look at it as an opportunity to hire the next really good person and try to bring new energy and enthusiasm to the organization. But I still, as you I’m sure you do, don’t allow different people to change the culture of how we do things and what we do relative to here’s the principles in the eyes of the organization, they’re clearly defined, and everybody’s got to buy into those things and they also have to buy into the standard of how we do it.

“So to get people who are willing to do that and want to do that is really, I think, important so that you can still sort of develop the team dynamics and team chemistry that you would like to have. So sometimes we’ve done that successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully.”

These next comments really stood out, as Saban mentions how difficult recruiting can be after losing staff members who have been working the recruiting trail — sometimes for years and years for the Tide.

“We certainly had a lot of change this year and I think it affected us some in recruiting because now you recruit guys for so long, as you know, because we start so much earlier,” Saban continued. “So when you lose the person that has a relationship with them a month before they are going to decide where they’re going to go, it does have some impact.”