How successful are players after transferring from Alabama? Tracking each departure

selmaborntidefan

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This doesn't really surprise me at all. If you're not good enough to crack a starting lineup with as many players as we rotate in and out, how can you possibly be NFL caliber material? We keep all those guys fresh and a lot of the time we have juniors and seniors with a LOT of playing time even if they have yet to actually START a game. If you're good, it eventually comes out.
 

Tidewater

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This doesn't really surprise me at all. If you're not good enough to crack a starting lineup with as many players as we rotate in and out, how can you possibly be NFL caliber material? We keep all those guys fresh and a lot of the time we have juniors and seniors with a LOT of playing time even if they have yet to actually START a game. If you're good, it eventually comes out.
I think there is a lot of young man psychology going on. When a star athlete is being recruited, he is told he is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Then when he arrives in Tuscaloosa, he finds out, "You are one of many , very talented players here. How hard are you willing to work?"
If that young man has someone (dad? mom? coach?) whispering in his ear, "You should not have to prove yourself. You should just be starting, period," then that starts to work on a young man's psyche, work ethic, etc. Leaving starts to look like the path of least resistance, but obviously, it is not the shortest path to success or an NFL contract.
 

KrAzY3

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I guess you can figure out who I'm talking about if you try, but I shared an adviser with the football players at my college, a couple of whom transferred from Alabama.

I remember being told they "wanted to play in the NFL" (may be both but I remember hearing it about one specifically). I didn't say it, but two things came to mind when I heard that.
A: If you wanted to go to the NFL, why leave Alabama?
B: That's not going to happen.

I think there's a naive assumption that lack of playing time is keeping these guys from the NFL. So, if they are a backup at Alabama they can't go to the NFL. I think that's a shortsighted way to look at it, since logically if you can't crack the starting lineup at Alabama you probably can't make an NFL roster. Staying and trying to earn it at Alabama is probably a better way to the NFL than going to a place that has less means to help you develop your talents.

Not just that, but there's a potentially concerning aspect of the "I want to be an NFL player" from someone clearly not on track to do that. I understand that if you are a highly ranked guy out of high school, it has to seem like a realistic possibility. However, I would hope that there's a moment of realization in college where they understand that becoming an NFL player probably isn't going to happen and they should use their education to prepare for another career.
 
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4Q Basket Case

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That article should be required reading for all signees, their parents, advisers and various hangers-on.

A couple of questions I'd like to see researched:

Given that Alabama starts out with the best recruits in the country, logic would say that they'd have success after transferring. Clearly, that isn't the case. So how do transfers from other SEC schools do, both in their final college destination and in the NFL?

How do transfers to Alabama do? I can think of two success stories (Jake Coker and Richard Mullaney). A third, Gehrig Deiter looks promising. I'm sure I'm forgetting others.

Intuitively, I would say that incoming transfers fare relatively well, and outgoing ones don't. But I'm biased. What do the numbers say?
 

deliveryman35

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The article mentions that Alvin Kamara has had the most success of all of them, but I would argue that at this point in time that Philip Ely has instead. He did a great job at Toledo and looks to be getting off to a good start in coaching(already a GA at Iowa State)
 

Tidewater

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However, I would hope that there's a moment of realization in college where they understand that becoming an NFL player probably isn't going to happen and they should use their education to prepare for another career.
I had a football player as a student (not at Bama) who had realized that the NFL was not in his future. He realized that football was a way to earn a college degree and he paid the appropriate amount of attention to his studies. He still gave everything he had on the football field, but he knew his last college game would be his last football game.
 

selmaborntidefan

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But there's a few other problems here:

1) MOST stars in the NFL did NOT go to Alabama nor to an SEC school

Some Hall of Fame or evey just very good players went to some incredibly small or not big name schools - Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Richard Dent, Howie Long, Everson Walls, Steve McNair, Fred Dryer, Brian Piccolo, Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson

2) There's always free agency

3) The simple truth is that the gap between even the mid-level Alabama players and the NFL is a chasm as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. The players are not just 'better' - they're SUBSTANTIALLY better.

I don't agree that it NECESSARILY stands to reason that if a person can't make Alabama then he can't play in the NFL - BUT...he better have some hidden talent that he's able to get out and show to someone important and when it matters, too.
 

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