Alabama’s top-rated recruiting class came together in one weekend
By Corey Long
Published:
Alabama secured a No. 1 recruiting class for the sixth consecutive year.
Despite winning a fourth national title in seven season, Alabama wasn’t a slam dunk for winning the recruiting wars for another season. LSU had been strong all year and was looking at adding another five-star prospect (defensive back Kristian Fulton) on signing day. Ohio State and Florida State were also expecting strong finishes.
But Alabama is Alabama, and this year the Tide staff might have pulled off their most aggressive move to date. Rather than space out their top targets over the three recruiting weekends before signing day, they decided to go all in on the weekend of Jan. 22.
All together 23 prospects visited Tuscaloosa that weekend. Four five-star prospects and 11 four-star prospects were among that group. Alabama didn’t get a clean sweep of targets — no one does — but it did secure four major signings that shaped their class of 2016.
Here’s a few more thoughts on the weekend of Jan. 22:
This was a bold strategy
Even though Alabama sells itself to large extent, there was still a decent risk by loading up with this many targets for one weekend. Was it going to be too much for the staff to handle? Were certain top targets going to get more attention than others? Were commits from other programs going to try and hijack the weekend by silently recruiting for their respective schools?
And when there are that many prospects around campus at one time, there’s always a chance something bad could happen.
Credit to Nick Saban and the staff for managing everything well. Even the players who didn’t join the Crimson Tide’s recruiting class seemed to enjoy the visit.
Whether this starts a trend is hard to say. Very few programs have the cache among recruits to pull this off.
Top targets bonding
Any question that five-star inside linebcker Ben Davis was an Alabama lean was answered when he switched his official visit date from Jan. 29 to Jan. 22 at the request of the staff.
The reason for this was simple: The staff wanted Davis to bond with five-star outside linebacker Lyndell “Mack” Wilson.
#RollTide ? w/ my bro @bendavis_1 pic.twitter.com/7kmIBISe7o
— MWS (@MackWilSr) January 24, 2016
With Davis’ family ties to the school so strong (both of his parents went there and his father is still the program’s tackles leader), the Alabama staff felt good about his intentions.
Wilson was different. He really liked Florida a lot. He was very public about being a Gators lean for much of his recruitment. He had been on Alabama’s campus plenty of times, so nothing was going to blow him away.
It was all going to come down to the right fit and relationships.
Davis and Wilson bonded during the weekend, talked about playing together and winning more championships for the home state program. It was a perfect match.
One big surprise
Even though four-star offensive lineman Scott Lashley backed away from his Mississippi State commitment during the season, it was only thought to be a matter of time before he rejoined the Bulldogs’ class. But Alabama, which really ramped up its recruitment of Lashley before the Christmas holidays, had seriously given him something to think about going into his official visit.
Lashley had already disclosed that he was a fan of Cam Robinson and committing to the Tide would give him an opportunity to be mentored by the All-American lineman.
At the end of the day there were too many good things about Alabama for Lashley to ignore. His commitment on Tuesday evening started a major surge for the Tide that didn’t stop until their class was ranked number one.
Final push for Hall
Terrell Hall, a four-star defensive end out of Washington D.C., was so impressed by Alabama on his first unofficial visit that he backed away from an Ohio State commitment.
While Alabama was always in the mix for Hall, the 6-foot-5, 255-pound prospect was across the board for much of the season. Maryland had made a big surge with their new, recruit-friendly staff under head coach D.J. Durkin.
One coach who had recruited Hall for Alabama, Aazaar Abdul-Rahim, was at Maryland now and had an inside track to Hall.
Florida State was in the picture as assistant Odell Haggins had plenty of success recruiting in the beltway over the past five years.
Ole Miss had the final visit and the Rebels are never to be counted out.
But with signing day approaching, it was Maryland or Alabama, and there’s no question that Hall went back to his official visit and saw that only one program could get that many elite prospects in the same place at the same time.
Corey Long is a freelance writer for SaturdayDownSouth.com. Follow Corey on Twitter @CoreyLong.
