Like those above me have said, we generally just cherry pick in state talent now and we have always recruited nationally. Here lately most of our playmakers have been from other states. Our in state talent this year that are making an impact is Bo Scarbrough (Tuscaloosa, AL), our #1 and #3 receivers (in terms of yardage) are ArDarius Stewart (Fultondale, AL near Birmingham) and O.J. Howard (Prattville, AL near Montgomery). Our starting Center is also from Alabama (Bradley Bozeman, Roanoke, AL).
On defense it has been Da'Ron Payne (Irondale, AL near Birmingham), LB Shaun-Dion Hamilton (Montgomery, AL but will be out against U-Dub), LB and Butkus Award Winner Reuben Foster (Auburn, AL but only spent his Senior year there) and CB prospect and starter Marlon Humphrey (Hoover, AL near Birmingham) rounds out our starters and major contributors. All those I listed were top recruits other than Bozeman and Hamilton and Hamilton was still a 4-star LB out of h.s.
As for powerhouse private schools we had Edgewood Academy (they only play other private schools here, they cannot play public schools) had a 71 games winning streak which I think was the longest current streak in the nation until their opener this year, but the level of play at that level is not really high when compared to public schools here. They lost their coach and quite a few good players from last years team with the coach leaving just before the season started. They are not in a big city but are basically between Birmingham and Montgomery and pulled a lot from Prattville/Millbrook areas which are the suburbs now of Montgomery basically. In the public school division you have McGill-Toolen Catholic out of Mobile who are always good and Madison Academy which is a smaller private school and they just sent 2 running backs to auBARN in the past 2 years, and I should say those two private schools play in the public school division but they are penalized by the 10-12th grade student count including the 9th grade holdbacks. That is basically it in this state as far as private school powers year in and year out.
Public wise we have Hoover (which had a tv show on MTV and are always on tv) who almost always plays 1 or 2 out of state games a year and has been very successful over the years, they are a big suburb of Birmingham and the city of Hoover actually hosts the SEC Baseball Tournament every year. Hoover now owns the most playoff victories in this state and has the most state titles with 12 now.
As for Scott Cochran our S&C Coach, how many schools do you see feature their S&C Coach on their jumbo-tron throughout the game at every home game? That should tell you about enough alone. He is without a doubt the best. It's rare we lose a top player anymore (knock on wood)
