The like is that you're acting like playing football at Alabama is the be all that ends all.
I don't want to waste too much time being defensive, but my exact words were: "
his best chance at being a millionaire in football is Alabama.". It might not seem like it, but I usually have data to back up assertions I make on this forum. Be it when I discuss quarterbacks, expansion, special teams, or yes, recruiting. I have seen data to indicate that Alabama is at the top tier in terms of converting 5 star talent to NFL talent. That's as I said earlier, verifiable fact. I do hope no athlete bets everything on the NFL though, they need to focus on getting their degree and making it something meaningful in a future profession.
As much as I love UA, Stanford is a better school. If he wants a degree from one the best public or private universities in the country, then good for him. Even if he IS successful at football in college, nothing is guaranteed in the NFL. I'm sorry some of us have different opinions on things.
And if someone wants to use this in recruiting, so be it, but if he were to ask my opinion is would tell him to hold out for Stanford if that's what his heart desired.
I suppose I should point out that
his heart's desire is to play football for Alabama. He committed to Alabama, he wants to play football for Alabama, but he has people that have talked him out of it apparently. So there's that.
Beyond that though, it's not cookie cutter. I posted earlier that the data shows that provided the individuals are on the same level in terms of how they test, it doesn't matter professionally if you go to a top tier college or not. I didn't elaborate at length as to why that's the case. Now, obviously if someone has two colleges to choose from, they are unlikely to choose the one that doesn't offer what they need. Where Stanford shines is that they offer the students so much, but provided another college (accredited with a reasonable amount of resources of course) offers the classes and major that a particular student wants, the truth is the difference becomes negligible. An easy way to explain that is if someone takes History of Western Civilization from Stanford or from Alabama, it isn't as though they are getting substantially more knowledge merely from taking that class at Stanford. That's the part that so many people overlook. Sure, just like MIT offers some things that Stanford doesn't offer, Stanford offers some things that Alabama doesn't. However, I reiterate that providing Alabama provides the classes he wants, the end result would be a negligible difference. Remember, you can't teach intelligence. The biggest reason a recruiter would send someone to Stanford or MIT and not Alabama is merely because those institutions have already done some of the work of weeding out some types of students and gathering other types. Once someone embarks on a career, their professional expertise will matter far more than where they graduated from.
From what I've seen of where his recruiting went "wrong" is that someone came along and said he should just prioritize colleges by the most prestigious and he's done that. I haven't seen any real indication that he wanted to go to Stanford or Notre Dame because of particular classes they offered but rather just because they are better "brands" and one should never buy something on the basis of brand alone. Also, to be clear I don't think most comments or threads have an impact on recruiting. I was just trying to point out that some do. For my part I'd tell him to go where he wants to go, not where he's being told to go.
Setting aside his educational goals, and he seems to have a few, a player of his caliber will develop into an NFL talent almost anywhere that he attends college. Some schools clearly do a better job of developing players. Some kids need less development.
If Alabama offers an advantage over other schools right now, I would say that it is in the area of developing teenage kids into young men. Everyone focuses on The Process as if it was about football - but it is not. The Process is about life. The Process is what distinguishes Saban from other coaches, though other coaches are catching on. Teach these young men the value of hard work and dedication and let that carry them anywhere they want to go.
If this young man wants to go to Stanford, his football skill-set will be developed and he will get a great education. Same can be said at Alabama or Georgia. Assuming he is not injured he will probably see the NFL by attending any of these schools. What he does when he gets there is up to him. But that is when The Process matters most. That is when you have the rest of your life in front of you and no one to tell you what to do. That is when you need to be a man, and if you haven't developed those skills yet your chances of having long term success diminish considerably.
Well reasoned post and a lot of what I'm going to say isn't a direct response to you. I've seen people put forth the notion that if they're good enough they're can't miss, but as RTR noted, can't miss still misses sometimes. Someone alluded to this earlier and I didn't reply because I was trying to avoid back and forth but we're at the point now that we might as well get down to it.
Intelligence can not be taught. At least not in a meaningful way. In terms of academic studies, what they are mostly doing is teaching knowledge, which combines with intelligence to form skill. Intelligence is such a huge part of the equation though, and while it is possible to diminish intelligence, there's not much that can be done to increase it. That is the biggest reason why people that could get into Ivy League colleges but chose not to, did not suffer in their professional lives. The biggest thing is intelligence and it doesn't matter nearly as much where someone comes by the knowledge to succeed in life as long as they gain it somehow.
Why is Alabama different? Why then do I say while Ivy League doesn't matter much, Alabama does? Well, for one we are talking about a much more elite group of people when we are talking about 5 star athletes. The Ivy League has thousands of freshman every single year, there are only a handful of 5 star football recruits every year. Conversely, many professional fields offer hundreds of thousands of jobs if not millions. For instance there are almost 1 million doctors in the United States. There are only 1,696 NFL players who make almost 2 million per year on average. So, when we talk about college football at the highest level, we are talking about something far more elite and specialized than almost anything the Ivy League deals with.
That is not the biggest factor though. How is it that Alabama has a better conversion rate for 5 star players? Better discipline and yes better focus on academics is part of it (part of the process one could say). Alabama has one of the best graduations rates of any FBS program, which is one reason I scoff at the idea that going there is to the academic detriment of a student. Wasn't North Carolina supposed to have better academics? That isn't the main factor either though.
In terms of most professionals, the simple intelligence plus knowledge equals skill equation is going to be the main factor. In football though, there's an area that can be changed and that is physical ability. Yes, it relies heavily on natural ability, but unlike relatively static intelligence, a player can be trained to run faster, jump higher, etc... This is another area in which Alabama excels, their athletes have some of the best trainers and equipment possible at their disposal.
The sum of this is a noticeable difference in terms of converting these guys to the NFL. It's not 100%, but for instance Alabama has a better ratio of doing this than Florida. Even those who dismiss my assertions about Ivy League educational benefits being exaggerated, can certainly see the logic to why Alabama's team of professionals can do a better job of developing NFL talent than most schools.
I hope I've completely covered it this time. There's a lot more data that could be brought into the discussion but I think that the explanation suffices. I applaud anyone who can get into a prestigious institution. I don't blame anyone for going to Stanford, I can certainly understand why someone would want to go there, or to Notre Dame, etc... but I would hope everyone would look beyond merely the academic rankings of an institution and look at how what they offer (and cost) serves their goals in life.