Are we stumbling down the stretch

[Andy]

I know we have had a good class so far and it will be a top 5 or 10 for sure with Andre. Howver, it looks like we could be in for a few losses to the Barn over the next few weeks. Of course this is only specualtion but if we lose Stephens, Whitehead, Hawthorne, and Goggins to the Barn that would sting a little bit. Why do you guys like Surf and RTO think this is happening. Common sense would tell you that at least half of these guys would choose us. By the way if someone gave me a choice and said would you take Andre or the rest of these guys, I still take Andre over all of them combined!!!

 

[KrAzY]

I think we've had a good class, but it is kinda of relative. We came off our best season, well in about a decade all things considered. You would expect a great class. The frustrating thing is that things have seem to have dried up for us. It would seem that Alabama remains/remained focused on landing top notch talent that other teams seem to have the inside track on. I'm not saying going the Ole Miss route and just snatching up every potential D1 player you can is the way to go, but things have really thinned out for us and aside from Andre Smith I don't see any marquee names that seem to be leaning towards us (and even Andre is far from a sure thing).

It is frustrating given what I would have considered a perfect chance to bring in a amazing class. But, here's hoping the coaches have their back-up plans in place because it seems like we are going to need them when the Barn starts racking up on the recruits we are fighting over.

 

[drjamesm]

We are not stumbling just running short on targets

I know we have had a good class so far and it will be a top 5 or 10 for sure with Andre. Howver, it looks like we could be in for a few losses to the Barn over the next few weeks. Of course this is only specualtion but if we lose Stephens, Whitehead, Hawthorne, and Goggins to the Barn that would sting a little bit. Why do you guys like Surf and RTO think this is happening. Common sense would tell you that at least half of these guys would choose us. By the way if someone gave me a choice and said would you take Andre or the rest of these guys, I still take Andre over all of them combined!!!

We have never been Bama's to lose with Hawthorne,Stevens or Whitehead. :frown: However,I'm not sure were out of it with Goggins.......some say we have pulled the offer,IMO I sure hope not. :conf3: I have said all along A Smith is the big fish and if we can get a DL and a LB to add to the group we will be fine! :wink:

 

[GrandBayTider]

The Barn had 19 slots to fill and have 21 commits. Everyone is saying that they will get Peanut, Hawthorne, Stevens, and Googans. 25 guys to fill 19 slots? Pretty good problem to have considering they have some good players already committed.

 

[jthomas666]

I honestly think part of the problem is media perception. They anointed Urban Meyer as the Next. Great. Coach, and they're going to stick by that assessment--and don't you think that sort of media adulation doesn't have an affect on recruits.

Conversely, while Shula has gotten some praise for what he has accomplished, and Kines has gotten similar praise, none of it has had any traction. All the praise for the Cotton Bowl win was lost in the roar over the Rose Bowl.

How can it be that we are having such trouble with top defensive recruits, particularly since there is no doubt that the coaching staff can coach them up and develop winning schemes? It's a puzzler.

 

[KrAzY]

I just hope we can stop the bleeding. But hell, if we can't get the best I hope we can come up with more guys like Javier Arenas. We offered, he accepted. Deal was done. I'm sure there are more guys like that out there, so in a weird way it is comforting. As long as we can dig up a few DL guys like that to offer I'll be ok with things.

But it isn't very nice to see us slipping on Rivals and Scout. Coming off a season in which we were ranked 8th, 10th on Rivals and 22nd on Scout isn't really that impressive.

 

[Crimson Surfer]

I just hope we can stop the bleeding. But hell, if we can't get the best I hope we can come up with more guys like Javier Arenas. We offered, he accepted. Deal was done. I'm sure there are more guys like that out there, so in a weird way it is comforting. As long as we can dig up a few DL guys like that to offer I'll be ok with things.

But it isn't very nice to see us slipping on Rivals and Scout. Coming off a season in which we were ranked 8th, 10th on Rivals and 22nd on Scout isn't really that impressive.

Ranked in the top ten in recruiting is a very good thing. If that is bleeding, "Let it Bleed Crimson."

http://rivals100.rivals.com/teamrank.asp?SID=880

 

[LP-HSV]

Y'all are depressing.

Go back and look at Bama's recruiting (and ranking) in 2003, 2004 and 2005 (on Rivals), then see if you don't change your outlook.

:cool2:

 

[KrAzY]

Y'all are depressing.

Go back and look at Bama's recruiting (and ranking) in 2003, 2004 and 2005 (on Rivals), then see if you don't change your outlook.

:cool2:

If you go by Scout, Alabama was 16th in 2005 and 19th and 2004. We are 22nd right now.

I know we are better this year according to Rivals but we damn well should be. Let's see. 4-9, 6-6 and 10-2. Which years would you expect us to do the best in recruiting? This should be our best class in about ten years.

 

[CapstoneGrad06]

Stumbling?

I think not. We can close with Andre Smith, Milton Talbert, Terry Grant, Deantwan Whitehead (30% chance), Marcus Tillman (knows Jimmy Johns personally), Marcus Udell, and Michael Goggins (33% chance). So that sounds like a good lineup to finish with, especially with Andre leading the parade. I know we want get all of them, but 5 of the 7 sounds right putting us at 25 plus 3 greyshirts (or 28, expecting a couple casaulties). It will be a top ten class perr rivals and top twenty per scout's strange rankings. So I'll be very happy with the class. We may not fill our need on the DL or LB but we have guys that can move over to LB that are already in the program. It's also not like two years ago when we used the "warm body" theory to fill numbers. We can afford to go after the big shots (ala. A.J. Jones, Brandon Spikes, Tim Tebow, and Jake Ricks) and loose out on occasion. Then the next year hopefully sign guys of high caliber stature. Unfortunately this season Florida got rolling with Tebow and never quit, picking up Jones and Spikes in the process. And teams like Ole Miss came in and took "Plan B" like Lockett. So this happens in big time recruiting , at least we're worring again about not getting the 5 stars of the world and not who our next coach will be. Its good to be back.

 

[drjamesm]

Cap. I got your point,but

lockett was not a plan B the staff felt he is equal to Whitehead. Talbert is a plan B,but IMO he's a good prospect just not a 4*.I have been hoping all along that we land Talbert and for that matter maybe steal Tllman. However,I feel Peanut is a very long shot prollie 10%,but you just can't tell sometimes.

 

[BAMARICH]

It is frustrating given what I would have considered a perfect chance to bring in a amazing class.

Could you please give some more detail to what should have been done to bring in this "amazing class?" From what I have followed this season, we have heavily recruited a number of prospects, for both the DL and LB. How did we know we were going to "strike out" on so many of them? Are they supposed to tell us in advance that we have a zero percent chance and therefore give us an extra amount of time to go after the second wave of top prospects? I agree wholeheartedly that it's frustrating... but at the same time I am waiting on a number of fans to begin outlining the better plan that CMS should have followed. Any takers? BTW, for my money, I will put far more stock in the ratings of Rivals than Scout (just my money though).

 

[runtheoption22]

For the past 2 weeks, I've been seeing these threads all over-- not just here and by no means any offense to you Andy-- and I've been wanting to come back with a great, huge detailed response.....but I have refrained.

So, I reply, with only this:

most of these kids that we have "lost," weren't ours to begin with. The closest thing that we have on the radar left to being "ours" is probably Andre Smith....and he has NEVER named Bama even close to being a leader.

Yes, some of these kids look genuinely interested, admit that they have a great opportunity to play (especially the LBs), but choose elsewhere. And I see people asking why? why? why? Listen to me, go work with teenagers all day, every day for 2 straigt weeks......then you'll understand why these kids do what they do. They don't know what they are doing 75% of the time.

So, no, we are not stumbling, faltering, etc. This is a great class. The best of CMS's tenure. And the best is yet to come.

 

[Crimson Crony]

For the past 2 weeks, I've been seeing these threads all over-- not just here and by no means any offense to you Andy-- and I've been wanting to come back with a great, huge detailed response.....but I have refrained.

So, I reply, with only this:

most of these kids that we have "lost," weren't ours to begin with. The closest thing that we have on the radar left to being "ours" is probably Andre Smith....and he has NEVER named Bama even close to being a leader.

Yes, some of these kids look genuinely interested, admit that they have a great opportunity to play (especially the LBs), but choose elsewhere. And I see people asking why? why? why? Listen to me, go work with teenagers all day, every day for 2 straigt weeks......then you'll understand why these kids do what they do. They don't know what they are doing 75% of the time.

So, no, we are not stumbling, faltering, etc. This is a great class. The best of CMS's tenure. And the best is yet to come.

RTO, I share your sentiment. With the remaining recruits it is the 4th qtr, tie score (or behind by 3 by some opinions). Instead of complaining about the turnover we had in the 3rd qtr we all need to cheer CMS on. There is still alot of football left to play in this game.

 

[bamaga]

we are RUMBLIN', BUMBLIN' STUMBLIN'!!!!!! down the stretch, my prediction is for 28 to commit including Hawthorne groggans and SMITH!!!

 

[jambama1]

The more hawthorn and peanut puts us at the bottom; the more i feel good about our chances because they want to shock the world with their commitments.

 

[TommyMac]

It's impossible to please all BAMA fans. I firmly believe that if we signed all 4 and 5 stars with the exception of a couple of 3 stars, there would inevitiably be a few fans who would want to know why we failed with those two slots.

 

[LP-HSV]

If you go by Scout, Alabama was 16th in 2005 and 19th and 2004. We are 22nd right now.

I thought we decided Scout was for booger-eating Auburn fans.

 

[KrAzY]

Could you please give some more detail to what should have been done to bring in this "amazing class?" From what I have followed this season, we have heavily recruited a number of prospects, for both the DL and LB. How did we know we were going to "strike out" on so many of them? Are they supposed to tell us in advance that we have a zero percent chance and therefore give us an extra amount of time to go after the second wave of top prospects? I agree wholeheartedly that it's frustrating... but at the same time I am waiting on a number of fans to begin outlining the better plan that CMS should have followed. Any takers? BTW, for my money, I will put far more stock in the ratings of Rivals than Scout (just my money though).

I'm not really berating CMS. I'm happy he didn't lower his expectations and just stick with plan B guys. I made a thread before though, saying I thought we were getting caught between Florida and Ole Miss (and those type of schools). On one hand, Florida was taking the top guys from us and on the other hand Ole Miss was promising our plan B guys playing time and taking those from us. Leaving us with guys like the kid out of Florida (who might pan out, but hardly who we were after). I'm not here to yell at the staff, I just don't want to pretend that things are going well like some people here are doing.

From what I see, we have flirted with several top 100 guys and so far the only one we brought in was Alexander. There are three other in-state top 100s and it is possible we miss them all (even when being negative I have to say we are favored for Smith). Not to mention the out of state misses like Tebow.

My primary frustrating at this point is just lack of ability to close with these blue chip guys coupled with a lack of defensive linemen. We get Andre, we land a DL guy or two and I'll breath a lot easier. But... I'm not here to berate CMS (if I was going to complain about him it would be about leaving starters in too long). I'm just expressing my opinion on the process.

 

[bamaslammer]

I think the 10 win season definately helped us, but you can't have one good season and expect everything to be ok. These kids spent most of their high school days seeing Bama on probation. Shula is going to put solid teams on the field, We are just now starting to see anthing resembling debth, and as new kids come up they will see Bama have more big wins and they will bleed crimson.

What we have seen from Shula so far is him taking a hodge podge of players in a decimated program and having them fight their hearts out every week, Not once did they ever quit. As we get more talent, that sort of coaching is going to pay off. This years 10 win season was never supposed to happen. The best is yet to come. Todays kids though, they don't all think that far ahead, but tomorrows kids, they will see it, and they will want to be a part. The kids we have already signed, they may be just a tad smarter than the average joe. They may look and see what will be there instead of what is there.