Cristobal has been one of the best hires Saban has made while at Bama.

But look at our evals of the 2011, 2012, and even 2013 recruiting classes when it comes to OL. Even the 2010 class when Pendry was still around was really weak on the OL.

Cristobal is a definite upgrade as an OL coach/recruiter/evaluation guy. While we do recruit by regions, who we recruit IE our Big Board and the order we go after guys is done by the position coaches. IE Nuss selects the QBs he wants to pursue in what order, same thing with OL.
But he is the only position coach whose name is listed with every recruit at his position (except for Nuss with QBs). And we all know how serious Nuss is when it comes to selecting our QB, I am so glad to see an OL coach who comes in and works just as hard/as much for selecting his OL guys.

Pendry wasn't interested in recruiting toward the end and Stoutland was just bad at evaluating talent.

Look at the guys those two guys pulled in the 10, 11, 12, and 13 classes. And all of these classes expect 10 were Number 1 classes so the weak spot in each is the OL.

2010
Austin Shepherd - 3 Star. Up and down career
Chad Lindsey - 3 Star. Played well
Arie Kouandjio - 4 Star. Played well when finally healthy

2011
Aaron Douglas - 4 star. Sadly died soon after signing with us
Ryan Kelly - 3 star. Big drop off from Vlachos and Barrett.
Issac Luatua - 3 star. No impact
Cyrus Kouandjio - 5 star. Despite his brother connection almost was Auburn's left tackle the past few years.

2012
Brandon Greene - 4 Star. Now a blocking TE
Brandon Hill - 3 Star. No impact so far.
Caleb Gulledge - 3 Star. Plays at JSU now

2013
Leon Brown - 3 Star. Played well tonight. First real playing time
Brandon Hill - 3 Star. Resign out of prep school
Grant Hill - 4 Star. Local kid that started as a sleeper and then exploded. Has a great future ahead
Not counting Mazza. Been a surprisingly good LS but not an OL.

So Stoutland and Pendry really recruited a whole bunch of nothing the last 4 cycles despite those classes being Top ranked classes for the most part.

So Cristobal not only has had to sack up and coach a whole lot of nothing but he has been doing an A plus job finding, eval'ing, and landing 2014 guys for the OL.

Football is won and lost in the trenches. Stoutland let us slip dangerously on the OL.

This post was edited on 1/3/14 at 3:55 am